Carousel Project-Part 11-Folk Art Giraffe Painted-Photos

I've painted the folk art giraffe for the carousel.  Well, everything that is except for his tail.  Once I started painting the tail, I finally had to say that the tail was too large in proportion to the giraffe.  Even for folk art the tail just looked too large.  Actually, I think it looked as if I were trying to add a fifth leg.  Once in a while, you just have to stop kidding yourself that something is going to work.  I decided to start over on that piece. 

The romance side or outer side.

Sometimes paper mache' is too bulky to do really small pieces.  Too get enough strength to make sure the piece won't break it becomes too thick to be useful.  I am working on a new tail made from embroidery thread stiffened by glue I expect I will have that finished by tomorrow. I can already tell that it will look a lot better.

The reverse, which faces the inside.

At one point, I considered putting glass gems on the giraffe as decoration.  I even found small enough crystals to do it.  However, the cost was prohibitive because I wanted multiple colors of gems for the different animals.  I was not able to find a pack with multiple colors so I would have had to purchase numerous packs.  That put the total cost way up there.  I decided that bright dots of paint would have do do instead.  After all, this is a folk art piece.I don't necessarily need sparkly.

Once all the menagerie animals are painted, I'll insert the poles in the pre-drilled holes and glue them in place.  The holes were drilled before I painted.  Getting the holes drilled was an adventure in itself.  The drill bits I had that were the size I needed were not long enough to to all the way through the menagerie animals.  It took some ingenuity to figure out how to get the wholes to line up.  However, they are in place now, and that's what counts.

The coming week is much calmer than the last couple of weeks have been.  I hope to get more menagerie animals painted this week.  I'm really looking forward to this part of the project.  Hopefully, they will come out as well as the giraffe.  At this point, I've put a base coat on the camel, but it just doesn't look quite right.  I'll have to try again.