Paper Mâché Owl Part 2 Owl Body

 I blogged about making the Owl head during my last post.  Today I will be writing about how I created the body.  

I want to remind readers that the owl body is built in stages.  Where I start will not be what the body looks like when it is finished.  Sometimes you have to add more, and other times you have to take something off to get the shape right.  I think a lot of people that try making things in paper mâché  sometimes have unfinished projects because they look at the beginning stages and say, "This is never going to work" and give up.   You have to have faith in process.  The project is not finished until it is finished.  

The shape of the body in this case is going to be dependent on the size of the bird's head.  The head is spherical and about three and a half inches in diameter.  (Picture 1).  I need the head to sit so that the width of the bird matches that diameter of the head.

Once again, I am starting with a flat piece and making it into a three dimensional object.  To get the body shape I consider the shape of the bird's body in order to create a profile.  The breast of the body is shaped like an arc.  The back of the shape is a downwards slant.  The shape will also have to include some bump outs for attaching feathers later in the project. So basically, I am trying to draw what I see and make a bird shape in order to make a template.  (Picture 2)  

The next picture will be the bird shape cut out of cardboard.  I cut out two of these shapes.  (Picture 3) In order to make the body three dimensional, I cut straight pieces of cardboard to act as supports that will hold the two sides together.  I used masking tape rather than hot glue for this just in case I needed to tear it apart and start over.  If the supports had been hot glued, it might have damaged the bird shape.  It was more work to do it with tape, but it could have saved having to remake the body profile.  

My husband and I had a good laugh over some of these pictures.  The camera on my phone has some type of an AI feature that identifies the picture and assigns a label to it.  In the case of each of these it suggested that these were food items.  We made some guesses as to what type of food it might have been.  I suggested that the head might have been mistaken for a cheese ball and the body might have been
some type of chicken leg.  My husband thought that the cardboard cutout might have been mistaken for a flounder.  

Template for bird

I only have a beginning picture of the supports going on.  I took one early, because I have a tendency to work until I get to a stopping point and forget to take more pictures along the way.  That happened this time so the final picture for today will show a view of the inside of the bird once all the supports were in place.  

Profile of Bird in cardboard

Supports for the body shape

The shape of the body in three dimensions.

So that is about as far as I have gotten to today.  Next blog post I will be showing the body and how I plan to attach the head.  At this point some people might look at this and say, "This is never going to work".  It will work, and next post I will reveal the body of the bird and how I was able to shape it.  Check back next week on January 23rd for the next installment,