Paper Mâché Owl - Part 4 Finessing the Form

In my last blog post, I showed how the owl's body and head were joined.  Scroll back further to see the last few posts for more information on the start of this project.  Or, you can access the blog by going to folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com

This blog post will be about smoothing out some of the rough edges.  The construction of the body left quite a few sharp edges that need to be dealt with before moving on to the wings, legs, and feet.  It is important to deal with the hard edges, because they will appear in the layers of paper mâché that will come after the  form has been completed.  In some projects hard edges might not be a problem, but an owl would look noticeably wrong with hard edges.   

 Cleaning up these hard edges will be done in steps.  It is not a case of performing one task and saying  "There, I fixed it".  I think it will take at least three steps before I feel that I have eradicated the hard edge.

The first step to removing the hard edges on the sides was to use a craft knife and carve off small pieces.  I carved on an angle so that the edge has a bevel.  The beveled edges were then covered over with another layer of masking tape.  In the picture shown, this step has been completed on the back edge of the bird.  The breast edge has not yet been cut.  It is not a great photo, but you might be able to see that the edge is a little less sharp.  

The lower edge was treated as described above.  

In this photo you can see the line indicating where the wing should be.  

A line on the lower portion of the breast edge indicates where the leg should come out of the body.  and form the bend for the lower leg.  This will later be covered over, but I had a few minutes and just wanted to make sure that I was on track.  It would be easier to make a correction at this point, than later in the process. 

Once the bottom had been beveled and taped, I added some folded strips of foil to cover the area.  The foil was folded over to create four layers.  This was done for both the upper and lower edges of the body.  

All of the foil was covered with a layer of masking tape.  This added a layer of softness and the hard edges no longer look so hard.  At this point, I only plan to cover the foil with tape.  I did not plan to re-tape the whole body at this point.  

Unfortunately, I forgot to stop and take a picture of this layer with tape on it, so you will see that on the next blog post.  

Look for that post on February 7th.