Larger than Life Papier Mache

Most of the time air-dry clay is used to create miniatures or dolls, but it's also great for making lifesize or  larger-than-life clay sculptures such as the 4 foot tall teapot shown above!   Often the best product to use for such large sculptures is good old-fashioned papier mache.   Sometimes the basic form will be made with papier mache and a product like Celluclay (an instant papier mache) or a low cost air dry clay

Sculptures by Allen & Patty Eckman

The stunningly detailed sculpture shown above and in the video below may only be made from paper - but they are being snapped up by art fans for equally stunning prices!


Husband and wife team Allen and Patty Eckman create clay molds and then put a specially formulated paper pulp into their molds and pressurize it to remove the water.   Allen explained their technique:  "It should not be confused with papier mache. The two mediums are completely different. I call what we do 'cast paper sculpture'."


The pieces depict traditional scenes from Native American history along with some wildlife vignettes and commissioned subjects.  The artists write:  ..."Some of them we create are lifesize and some we scale down to 1/6 lifesize" ...  sometimes taking up to 11 months to make each piece.  





In 1987 Allen Eckman stumbled onto cast paper as a fine art medium and instantly recognized the beauty and possibilities for creating high detail, strong, acid free, pure, fine art sculpture. It took the Eckmans many years to unlock the secrets to the medium. Discoveries included paper formulation, equipment and tool innovations and their unique paper processing methods.  You cannot get where Patty and Allen Eckman are by pulping cotton linters in your kitchen blender.

However!....if you're interested in trying this exciting new technique, you'll be glad to know you can purchase a booklet from Eckman Fine Art where you can see an overview of exactly how the artists create their work at a master level or buy one of their DIY kits "Patty's Flowers".  

Patty's Flowers are a series of beginning level products for creating beautiful life-size fine art cast paper sculpted flowers taught in the Eckman Method® program. They are the first level introduction to the Eckman Method.  Read more about these products at Eckman Fine Art.  

Also in development is the complete Eckman Method® Program in a dowloadable format.     The process taught through the Eckman Method® includes working with museum quality hand made Eckman paper and bonding agents, using casts from Eckman paper pulp, then altering and transforming them into finished works of art using Eckman techniques such as forms, templates, other casts and freehand sculpting with various hand made paper products and tools manufactured by Eckman Fine Art. 

How to Make a Frog

This step-by-step tutorial from UltimatePaperMache.com shows you how to create this realistic frog using the 'paper mache clay' featured in yesterday's post.   Author says: Make this frog out of newspaper, masking tape, pipe cleaners and paper mache clay. ..... if I did it again I’d use stronger wire in place of the pipe cleaners so I could get thinner fingers and toes, but that’s the only part of the process I’d change.

Read more.....
http://ultimatepapermache.com/paper-mache-tutorial/paper-mache-clay

How to Make Paper Mache Clay

The author of this video (Jonni) created the sleeping lion cub shown above.   In the video shown below she demonstrates how to make the paper mache clay she uses to sculpt her figures.   Jonni says using this paper mache clay is faster than paper strips and paste, better details than paper pulp, and easier to make.

Caution: This material does use items from the hardware store that are not rated for use by children, and the resulting clay is not edible. Small children should not use this clay.

How to Decoupage a Bangle Bracelet

This tutorial for creating a decoupage bracelet from papier mache pulp and a recycled masking tape cardboard core is taken from the book Contemporary Papier Mache: Colorful Sculpture, Jewelry, and Home Accessories

You could create this with your own homemade papier mache or with an "instant" product like Celluclay.    Just add water to Celluclay to create a papier mache pulp.  You could also use an air-dry clay such as Creative Paperclay or some homemade cold porcelain.  Just about any no-bake clay product should work well and may give you a smoother texture than papier mache (if that was desired).

I see all sorts of possibilities with this idea and I hope you do too!

Part 1. Materials list
Part 2. Making the bangle
Part 3.  Decoupage instructions

How to make Noah's BJD Doll

A couple of days ago we featured a BJD tutorial on a Russian website, this is another BJD tutorial showing you some additional techniques.    Noah's Doll is sculpted with an air-dry clay stone clay (most likely LaDoll clay).

This site is in Japanese but has been translated to English.
English version.  

What is BJD you ask!

The following description of a BJD was taken from the Noah's Doll tutorial:
It is a kind of a doll with ball-and-socket joints in its body, arms and legs. Limbs and head are joined together by loops of elastic. There are many variations in the way to join each part of a doll.

The drawing at the right shows the basic construction of Noah's doll.
Arms are attached by elastic running through the armholes and torso.

Each leg has its own piece of elastic.  Loops of elastic run from the ankle up through the knee, through the leg-hole and up to the head.  Both loops being hung on a hook inside the neck.

Other ends of the elastic are attached to small "S" shaped hooks  inside the wrists and ankles respectively.

If constructed properly and is well-balanced, a BJD can stand on its own.

Of course, to have this type of joint stringing, the doll must be hollow.   There are several different methods for accomplishing this.   Noah's doll uses a combination of Styroform, sawdust clay and stone clay (LaDoll).    All air-dry products. 

If sawdust clay is not available to you, Celluclay (an instant papier mache pulp) or  an air-dry clay such as Paperclay could possibly be substituted for constructing the base form over the Styrofoam.    Do not use polymer clay for base layer because the Styrofoam armature CANNOT be placed in oven.

I think the main reason for using the sawdust clay is that (1) it's the traditional way and (2) is to keep down the cost and the weight.  The Styrofoam armature will be removed after the "core" layer has dried....then every part will be hollow.   This "core" layer will be the base for applying the final layer of  LaDoll  and the detail modeling.   LaDoll dries very hard and durable and can be sanded and polished to a fine finish.  

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and try making your own BJD.   For future reference, I will be adding this tutorial to my Air Dry Clay Tutorial Directory.

What is air-dry clay and how is it different from polymer clay?

by Mary in Oregon

Let me start by saying there's a huge variety of no-bake, air-dry, self-hardening clays!  Because of this variety, making a generalized comparison to polymer clay is difficult.

There are basically 3 types of clays for the home hobbyist... oven-cured, self-hardening and non-curing.... BUT..... the clays could also be grouped as oil-based, wax-based, resin-based, water-based, stone and cellulose-based.* (see Wikipedia definitions for more detail)    Polymer clays are not actually "clay" and must be heated to cure.  Although there are some air-dry & self-hardening clays containing polymers they are usually not referred to as "polymer" clay.  Oil and wax-based clays are the Plasticine clays often used to create clay animations.  This type of clay stays flexible (re-positionable) and it never hardens.  If heated, it will melt.