365 Day 140

crocodile (guy) smiles

I once owned a rubber stamp company called Crocodile Smiles -- today this guy is looking a little less bitey and a little more smiley.




upside down on the grid for the first layer on the box









I put this box frame around the back of his head hoping to give him the start of a neck or something I will be able to attach something else to.

The box had no top or bottom, so I needed to fill in the corners to help stabilize everything. I am not sure it was totally necessary, but what the heck...it feels sturdy (for now).






the head in the box frame...starting to fill in the corners













filled in and smoothed out inside the box







Laying on its side it looks like a laughing dog with a long nose, panting. I wanted to get a couple of quick photos of it standing straight up, too...while it still can. I am not convinced it isn't doomed to fall apart at some point. There is so much jaw that will hang off the edge of the neck (unless it is looking straight up into the air...LOL). No matter...I am having fun and learning more and more about using the plaster cloth.

365 Day 139

looks like he might bite

Look what I pulled down off of my "save it for later" shelf -- remember this guy?

This was my first papier mache project when I started out to find my method(s). I followed along with a book that used paper balls and newspaper and flour and water, then moves onto white glue and strips of cloth. This was a project from the book -- a trophy head. The one in the book looks a whole lot better, believe me...and the directions sound/look eaiser, too!






the head with just the masking tape at the back -- this is the newspaper/flour/water portion -- inside the mouth and around the teeth (which glow in the dark, by the way) the covering is glue/water/strips of cloth




It turned out that I really disliked the glue/water/strips of cloth. I just really hated working with it. And I hated the way the paint on the inside of the mouth turned out, but I was determined not to toss it out. I swore I would come back to it.

Shortly after that -- or perhaps while I was working on the glue/water/strips of cloth end stage(s) -- and going into the part that required me to measure something -- I remembered the packages of plaster cloth that I had stashed away in my supplies. Also around that time I wanted to make something for an open call for art that I thought I could use the plaster cloth for. Whatever...that was then, this is now.

Okay, back on track.

This guy has been up high on the shelf since last year. I walk by it daily and resent it. Today I had to watch what I was watching on regular/real tv on the computer because Comcast is having an outage in my area. That made me face the crocodile guy all day. I finally couldn't stand it any more plus I needed a project for today. Voila!



I had to figure a way to prop his mouth open and balance him somewhere high enough off the table to be able to get underneath him a little to work







Because of my deep abiding love for this new (to me) brand of plaster cloth and my success with it so far, I decided to tackle the crocodile guy. His two jaws were separate and that was the biggest obstacle I had been facing with him -- how to proceed from there (and avoid measuring the way the book wanted me to for a trophy head) (I really wasn't into the trophy head aspect in the first place, but it was one of the bigger (size wise) projects in the book and I wanted to work big) -- and how to get his jaws together on my own...like without someone to do the measuring or walk me through the pictures/diagrams. I am really bad at that...and measuring.

So I was going to just masking tape the jaws together at the back of the head and only put the plaster cloth on over the masking tape, just enough to hold it in place. To make a long story short (too late for that, Took!) it was going so well that I decided to plaster cloth as much of the top of the head as I could reach without needing to turn it upside down. I am very very pleased with today's progress!




extreme close up of the glue/water/strips of cloth surrounded on the sides by the plaster cloth













a shot of the end of his nose and teensy teeth -- that's his bottom jaw and tongue at the bottom of the photo -- he is propped open with a wad of cushy shipping material




I LOVE this plaster cloth!!!