It's time to welcome September and what better way to do so than with a creative project! A few months back, I mentioned on the DigiScrap Geek Podcast that I was part of a collaborative mixed media project. I joined some friends and acquaintances in a commitment to create a paper mache animal. It's finally time to share what we made!
I was pretty excited that my son chose to join in the project as well. It's been a while since I have gotten to do any crafting with my teen. We started by looking around Pinterest for a few ideas. I finally settled on a cat and my son chose a fennec fox.
We cobbled our animals together from plastic cups, duct tape, cardboard and tin foil. These bits of left over "trash" made a nice skeleton for our animals. We chose to use paper clay instead of a traditional paper mache. It is very humid in the Bahamas and the paper clay has a reputation for being fast drying whereas traditional paper mache may take weeks to dry fully here.We were very happy with the results though the paper clay ended up being a little rougher than we expected.
Because of the rough surface, we opted to use spray paint as our base coat. Initially, we chose acrylic paint to decorate the animals with, however, we quickly switched to chalk markers. We had a little more control with the chalk markers and they were fast drying. They also allow for coverage over darker surfaces( in most cases not even needed a second coat).
My son chose a navy base coat for his fennec fox. He then used both silver and gold to spray sections of the fox, in some cases using a stencil.
The rough surface made it harder to draw on the animal, so he opted for a more primitive tribal look.
I chose a gold spray paint as the base for my cat. The coat was rough but nearly as rough as my son's animal. I was able to lay down a stencil in a few spots and to spray some of the navy paint to allow the design to show through.I also drew some hearts and used the stencil to give my cat a sort of crown.
Not all of the stencil was crisp, given that the surface of the cat was curved. I used a chalk marker to outline small sections of it.
My son and I had a great time making our animals together and I am truly hoping to work on future collaborations. I have wanted to to more mixed media projects in the past, but I never seemed to find the time. Joining the collaboration gave me a bit of accountability while still allowing me to enjoy creative freedom.
You can see other animals from the Altered Paper Mache Animal Collaberation by hopping from blog to blog. There isn't a specific order to hop in. You're free to hop around and enjoy at out own whim.
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