Finished with the paper mache at last! Daniel is holding some “ears” that will have webbing between them. It took a while to get the tail tied into the right position so that it wouldn’t sag under the weight of the wet paper mache.
This is the underside of the dragon, with the paper mache skin finished at last. It may not seem like much, but it was fiddly and difficult.
This is what I worked on today; pages for my journal project. You can see I am thinking of dragons. I got the idea for these images from one of my students who was wearing a dragon henna tattoo on her arm. This little story has three pages. I will do the pages again for myself; this version goes to another person’s journal. We have a journal “round robin”.
Here is the latest picture of the dragon. I worked on both sides on Sunday. Left to do is the upper part of the neck where the ears will go. We are working on those separately and will attach them later, and also the tail which needs to correctly positioned.
Here we are adding the newspaper strips with the flour and water to the right side and across the belly area. I didn’t feel like working much today, but I told myself “just 10 minutes - you can do anything for 10 minutes” and of course I ended up working happily away until I had used up my paste and mostly finished the side. I also broke and reset the left hind leg at a better angle.
Jane
Today I added papier mache to the body and haunch of the dragon. By working on it every day (most days) little by little it gets done. This project can’t be ignored - it is right in the middle of the living room and we all have to walk around it.
The dragon looks gaunt and bony right now. The final skin will hide some of that; but the “Make Something Ugly” technique is all about lumpy; you just have to make it work for you.
Jane
Ah, that’s more like it. You can see the muscle structure has been added over the wire skeleton. All it really needs now are some wings and some skin! The muscles are just rolls of newspaper taped up, and the legs are wire thickened with paper.
How about now? does this look more like the dragon that was shown in the first post? The head has been filled out with a blob of newspaper covered with tape, and the back has some shape now.
What is that? It doesn’t look like anything now, but it will, very soon. The spine is some heavy-gauge wire, while the ribcage is chicken wire.
Daniel is about to be devoured by the dragon! We have been working on this creature for about a week. It will be about eleven feet long, with a ten foot wingspan.
