An Experiment and a New Paper Mâché Project

The small ball for the experiment.

Regular readers know that I always have to experiment on techniques with my projects.  On my last  paper mâché project, I tried sealing the piece with grout sealer before I painted it.  I wanted to find a different way to seal the paper mâché against moisture.  I planned to give the piece a couple of coats of sealer after it was painted as well.  Unfortunately, I ran out of the product.  With Covid-19 wrecking havoc everywhere, it might be a while before the piece is sealed. 

Pumpkin halves removed from the form.

While I am waiting for more sealer, I am on to a new experiment with a different product.  We had some thin-set mortar admix left over from one of our home improvement projects.  The milky-looking liquid polymer is supposed to be mixed in a one to one mixture with water and added to thin-set mortar for tiling projects.  It is supposed to help increase the bond and add water/moisture resistance.  I thought that being as I had time on my hands that I might check it out to see if it worked in making paper mâché items.  I wondered about its potential to moisture proof the paper mâché.  So, time for a new experiment.

My first pumpkin is painted but not sealed.

For my experiment, I wanted to know just how long an item made with the mortar admix might be able to resist water.  I wanted to know how long an object made of paper mâché mixed with the admix but not painted would last while soaking in water.  I thought that test would really put the product to the test.  That is the experiment, but before I can try it, I have to make a test object. 

One of my plans for a Halloween decoration was to be some glowing orbs.  The orbs would be paper mâché and spray painted with glow in the dark paint.  I decided that I would make a small ball for the experiment.  (Long time readers might remember my fascination with spherical objects.) 

I used a small Styrofoam ball as a base for the orb.  I covered the orb with masking tape, and then covered the tape with a layer of Press and Seal.  The  paper mâché will not stick to the Press and Seal.  Once I cast three layers of the paper mâché mixed with the admix, I cut the layers off the Styrofoam ball using a craft knife.  I always remove any base I use from my completed projects.  When possible, I try to use items more than once, so I carefully cut the paper mâché away from the base in sections, keeping the base intact.  That way, I have the ball to use again for another project.  For example, I used this same ball to cast the eyes of the pumpkin I made and blogged about in my last post.  Now that I have removed the ball from this project, I will use it again in some other project.

Before I cut the ball off the base, I made some registration marks on the ball so I know how to put it back together.  I have learned from experience that I need to number the marks, so that it can be realigned with its proper counterpart.  I could not remove the ball from the paper mâché layers when it was cut in half without damaging the ball.  The paper mâché was taken off the base in four sections.  Three layers of  paper mâché are not enough layers to be completely rigid.  It is easier to remove the paper mâché while the form still has some flexibility. 

Once the ball was removed, I used hot glue to put the ball back together matching the numbered marks.  I use hot glue, gluing it along the cut edges.  The flexibility of the three layers makes it easy to put pressure on the form to glue it together without too much of a raised edge. 

Once the ball was glued back together, I add three more layers of paper mâché.  This covers the cut edges and is strong enough to keep the ball from coming apart.  At this point, I have added two of the three layers to the ball.  Hopefully, tomorrow I will have time to put on the last layer.  After the last layer has dried for twenty-four hours, I will be ready to try the experiment and see how long the ball will last while sitting in water.

In the mean time, I have also started on another pumpkin.  So far, I have cast the paper mâché for three layers over the pumpkin form I created.  (Readers can learn about making the form by scrolling back through my last few posts or reading them at my blog:  folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com
 
The pumpkin was removed from the form in the manner described above, except that I was able remove it in halves rather than quarters.  The larger size of the piece gave it more flexibility.  In the photo above you can see the form is still covered in the Press and Seal.  This is still the same layer of Press and Seal that was used on my first pumpkin.  It is starting to come a loose here and there.  When I use the form again I will probably remove the old Press and Seal and add a new layer of the product.  The old layer feels a little chalky from the flour and is coming loose here and there.

Since taking these photos, I have glued the pumpkin halves back together and added two more layers of paper mâché.  Although I have not done the experiment on the small ball, I used the mortar admix with the flour and water for the paper mâché mixture.  Even if it does not perform as well as I hope, it seems to be working for the paper mâché mixture.  I will be blogging on how this is working out in the next blog post.  Check back in about a week and I will have more information on the experiment and the new pumpkin.

Paper Mâché Pumpkin Part 3- Painting

mâché

Painting is complete.

New readers who may wish to see more on the construction of the pumpkin can scroll back through the last few posts, or visit the blog at folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com

The yellow exterior coat.  Interior is Tangelo.

I have completed the painting on the paper mâché pumpkin.  The painting was a much bigger undertaking than I had expected.  Part of the time it took to paint the pumpkin was because I decided at the last minute to try an experiment.  Just as I was finishing the form of the pumpkin, I had an idea pop into my head about waterproofing it.  I was not sure it was going to work.  I was even more unsure whether I wanted to experiment on a pumpkin that I had spent so much time building from scratch.  However, curiosity got the better of me and I just had to try. 

Red coat painted over brown coat.

This was constructed from newsprint and a basic flour and water paste. This pumpkin was intended for limited outside use, or use in a sheltered area, and is painted with acrylic paints.  Acrylic paints will fade in prolonged exposure to sunlight.  I would have used exterior grade paints, but Covid-19 is a thing at the moment, and I was not heading to my local hardware store for exterior paint during a pandemic.  I had planned on sealing it with spar varnish, an oil based sealer.  When I started the project, there was some spar varnish in the workroom.  However, my husband was doing some Spring cleaning, and tossed it out.  So, at the moment, the pumpkin has been painted, but not sealed.

Sealed with grout sealer.

The idea that popped into my head was to use grout sealer on the paper mâché pumpkin once the last layer was dry.  I painted it with two coats of the grout sealer.  The grout sealer was slightly milky when it came out of the bottle.  When it dried, I could tell that the pumpkin looked a little darker once the grout sealer was painted on, but you could still easily read the newspaper text.  The interesting thing was that the grout sealer turned the paper mache really hard.  Hard like rock.  Sometimes when the end of a piece of paper does not glue down well I either use some white glue to stick it down, or rip it off if it is not in a critical spot.  However, once the grout sealer was on and dry, a single piece of paper felt like it was made out dried clay.  The piece would not tear off. 

After giving the sealer twenty-four hours to dry between coats, I was ready to paint.  I painted the main body of the pumpkin first.  First, I painted on two coats of medium-body Gesso as a primer.    The interior was pained with a craft paint called Tangelo.  It is a red-orange.  I used a brown acrylic paint for the exterior base coat.  The color was called Nutmeg.  It was browner than Raw Sienna but not as dark as Burnt Umber.  I let that dry for twenty-four hours than painted Cadmium Red Light Hue over the brown.  That red is very transparent.  Twenty-four hours later, I added  a yellow color called Straw.  It was a slightly greenish-yellow.  It also had a lot of white in it to opaque it, so I had to use a very thing coat of that color.  The brown and red coats were painted on with a half-inch bristle brush.  The final two coats were Cadmium Orange Hue.  The yellow and orange coats were painted on using a fan brush. 

The eyes were painted separately from the main portion of the pumpkin.  I had initially tried a different paint scheme for the eyes, but did not like it.  I repainted with two coats of the Gesso Primer and then started painting in the order above.  The difference is that I stopped painting after the Straw color.  The yellow seemed to give the pumpkin a baleful stare.  The red paint showing through did give the appearance of bloodshot eyes.

For the main section of the pumpkin's removable top, the primer and colors are the same as above.  The main difference is in the coloring of the stem.  I had a little trouble getting the stem colors to look like a stem.  I painted it over a couple of times.  I wanted to have a little bit of green at the base of the stem.  My first stem attempt was too green.  My second attempt was still to green.  I painted over most of the green with the Nutmeg, some Straw, a little Raw Sienna, and some more Nutmeg.  I finally found something I could live with, so I stopped there.  I just don't have as much painting ability as I would like.  I muddle through somehow.

The teeth are made from purchased paper clay rather than strip paper mâché.  The stem is paper clay also.  After two coats of the grout sealer and two coats of Gesso, they were painted with a base coat mixture of Titanium White, Raw Sienna, and some Pearlizing Medium.  That mixture helped cover the bright white of the paper clay.  A wash of Raw Sienna was applied after the first coat was dry.  Then the small pits and crevices were filled in with a darker wash of Raw Sienna.  After that was dry, the pits were further enhanced with small dabs of Raw Sienna.

Other than that, there were a few highlights painted on, above and beneath the eyebrows and nose to give them some prominence.  I also painted a few areas depressed areas around the mouth to make them more obvious.  That is about it.

At this point, I am calling the painting done.  I will have to wait until I get some exterior sealer to complete the project.  Soon I hope.  The main problem with exterior sealers is that they tend to have a high odor and need to be used on a well ventilated area.  I will have to use them outside and be able to store the project in a shed for a while.  I will figure something out.

My next project is going to be a different experiment on waterproofing the paper mâché.  There are two or three recipes on the internet, and they work.  The problem I have with them is that they make a big mess.  You need a large bucket, fairly large amounts of supplies, a drill with a paddle for mixing, etc.  My husband has the drill and maybe the paddle, but I would need a dedicated bucket. 

I really don't have to place for making such a mess.  The large amounts made by these recipes are way more than I would be able to work with in the amount of time I have available.  A previous attempt at storing the homemade paper clay was not a success.  It was in a bag in the refrigerator, and it molded very quickly.  I wanted to find something easier to make that can be done in small batches.  I have an idea.  I plan to try it out.   Check back in about a week for more on the new project.

Paper Mâché Pumpkin Part 2: The Basic Face

Current state of the pumpkin.

Please note:  I am only blogging about my project.  If you are trying to make one of these pumpkins use all necessary safety precautions such as appropriate tools, eye protection, and working in a well ventilated area when necessary.   This is not a complete list of safety precautions. 

In my last blog post I wrote about how I made the basic paper mâché pumpkin.  It started with some of the methods I have seen on the internet, but I also added my own idea, which seemed to make it have a more authentic pumpkin shape.  Today, I wanted to go into some of the methods I used to make the pumpkin's face.

Before the paper mâché layers.

Cutting out the eyes and mouth.

Anyone who has ever carved a pumpkin knows that there is always going to be one side that is better for a face than any of the others.  My pumpkin was no exception.  On side is a little higher and perhaps a little smoother.  That is the side I am using to carve the face.  But...before you can carve, you have to figure out the face.  It is decision time.  Did I want a happy face, scary face, sad face, etc?  Do you want it to look like a traditional carved pumpkin or do you want to go fancy on the features?  I decided on an angry, scary face.  The trouble is, I am not that great at drawing.  What does an angry face look like?  I know one when I see one, but trying to draw one was going to be a challenge.  In this case, Google Images came to the rescue.  If you input angry face, you will get many different pictures of angry faces.  Most of the faces are people mugging for the camera.  Perhaps actors or others are trying to portray what an angry face looks like.  Most of them seem to be trying to portray an emotion.  This is probably because it is not going to help a situation if you were to take a picture of someone when they are really angry.  Search words for the type of face you want to see:  happy, sad, smiling, and so on will yield lots of faces to help you figure out what you want to put on your pumpkin. 

Cutting open the top.

Anyway, there are a lot of different faces to choose from.  I would add one caveat here.  I pick the eye shape from one person, the mouth from another, and the nose from someone else.  If you just chose everything from one picture you will end up having it look like that person.  That person may not appreciate it if they should ever see a picture of your pumpkin with their face on it.  Furthermore, since this is a Halloween figure, I exaggerate the features as an added effect.  I am not trying to be realistic.  

In order to portray an emotion, you need to pay attention to what the muscles of the face are doing.  For example, what is the mouth doing?  Is it open and yelling, or pinched closed to keep from saying something.  Are the eyes wide open or shifted in one direction?  Are the eyebrows lifted or drawn in toward the nose?  These are the details that will help make the face look like what you want it to look like.  I make a few quick line sketches of some of the details I want to use on my pumpkin.  When I am satisfied with the way things look, I draw it onto the pumpkin.  I am just drawing general placement guidelines.  I may draw and redraw several times.  It does not matter if I use a marker.  Everything will be covered my multiple layers of paint.

At this point, I have not cut open the top of the pumpkin.  You can see in the second picture that I have marked the cutting line with a series of dots.  I feel that the pumpkin is more stable for cutting the face if the top is intact.  Some people prefer to leave the top intact and cut a small opening in the bottom back of the pumpkin for adding lighting such as a battery operated candle and/or electrical cord as needed.  This pumpkin is made of paper, so using a real candle is not the best idea.  However, for this pumpkin, I chose the more traditional top opening.  More on that after cutting out the face.  With twenty-twenty hindsight, I would say it would have been much easier to cut a small hole in the bottom.

When I have a face that I am ready to live with, I begin cutting out the areas that I want to be opened.  I cut open the marked areas using a craft knife.  I used a sharp knife blade and change the blades frequently.  Cutting through six layers of paper mâché is not easy and it is not quick.  It was a slow process.  I started with the eyes because they were smaller.  Then I cut the out the mouth.  I have been tempted to try a dremel too for cutting, but I am concerned that they go too fast and I might end up cutting more than I had intended.  Maybe one day....

 To mark the opening in the top, I put a compass in the center of the stem and it used to mark a circular opening.  The pencil mark was very light and hard to see, so I added the dots in black marker. It was quicker than trying to draw a solid line all the way around the circle.

Getting the top to fit back on tightly was a challenge.  First off, the open edges where I cut the top had to be covered with a couple of layers of paper mâché.  Even just two layers made the top wider than the opening.   I had seen a recommendation on how to make a top fit using paper clay on the internet, but it did not work well for me. The paper clay was moist and the moisture wicked into the paper mâché.  The edge started to get soggy.  I had to pull all of it off. So it was on to Plan B.  My next trial was to cut a wider opening on the pumpkin.  Then I would add a layer of paper
mâché and let it dry.  Then check to see how the top fit.  It might need a little more here and a little more there.  By building up the paper  mâché a little bit on a bit at a time, I finally have a top that fit well.  Now the work is ready to begin.

Believe it or not, these blog posts take a long time to write and edit.  I would love to tell you all about it in one post, but I have already been sitting at the computer for nearly two hours.  My attention is needed elsewhere.  Next blog post I will be blogging about how to create the teeth and lips.  Check back in about a week.

Making a Paper Mâché Pumpkin

The face on the pumpkin

Today I wanted to blog about my latest project; a pumpkin made from paper mâché.   I have been working on this for quite some time, but paper mâché is such a long, slow process, that I wanted to get a few steps completed before I started putting it on the blog.  Otherwise, I am only blogging about adding another layer of paper and flour paste time after time.  Now that I have some of the basic work done, I hope my readers will join me as I continue to work on this project.  I will start from the very beginning and show all the steps for completing the pumpkin over the next few blog posts.  Today's post will be about the project from its concept and the first steps.  

Pumpkin armature

 with tubes.

Earlier in the year, I had blogged that I wanted to start learning about making molds.  Making Halloween decorations is fun, but they take so long that making them one at a time is very time consuming. I thought that if I could learn to make a pumpkin armature and cast the basic form that it would speed up my process.  If nothing else, I would be something new.  This project may be the start of a new way of building some of my Halloween projects.

Fully covered with paper tubes.

One of the interesting things I have seen while surfing the internet for ideas had to do with Halloween dioramas.  Long term readers may recall that I have made a few over the years.  The dioramas that caught my eye were built inside pumpkins.  Many of the makers were using the foam pumpkins called Funkins.  Funkins are really expensive. 

A divider separates halves of the pumpkins.

The other project that really caught my eye were cast cement pumpkins for the garden.  How much fun would it be to make permanent pumpkins that could remain outside.  Long time readers may also recall that I have made a number of hypertufa stained glass gazing balls.  Hypertufa is a form of concrete that is made with additives that make it much lighter than regular concrete.  I had visions of hypertufa pumpkins in my future.  The pumpkins were cast inside of paper mâché pumpkins.  When the concrete had set, the paper mâché form is cut off the hardened concrete.  It seemed like an interesting idea.  I thought I would have to check it out.  However, paper mâché pumpkins from the craft store are not that cheap either.  For the most part, they are hard to find except before Halloween.  I did find some online at a more or less reasonable price, but the shipping charges really caused the cost of the project to rise.

Then came some good news and some bad news.  A craft store in my area was closing (bad news).  The store was consolidating their merchandise at the store from all their stores into my store for deeply discounted sales.  The store had a whole bin of paper mâché pumpkins for forty cents each!  Forty cents each!  Score! (good news)  I wanted to buy ten, but settled for only four.  I do not have a lot of storage area, and the pumpkins are bulky.  Also, I felt like a lot of people might want some of the pumpkins and that I should not be greedy.  I planned to use these four pumpkins for the hypertufa project.  However, Covid-19 interrupted my plan.  I did not have all the materials necessary to mix the hypertufa.  It did not seem worthwhile to go out for the materials during a pandemic.  (bad news) That project has been put on hold until things get better.  For now, that large bag of pumpkins is taking up a lot of space in my studio.

I still wanted to find a less expensive way to make a pumpkin.  I wanted to make more than one though, so I thought I would try making a mold and casting them.  But first, I had to find a pumpkin.  They are scarce around here in winter when I started the project.  Since none were available, I had to make a pumpkin first.  That is how this project got started; with making my own pumpkin.

I looked online and saw many tutorials on how other people were making their pumpkins.  The shapes they made mimicked actual pumpkins with varying degrees of success.  From the standpoint of representational art, they were a success.  However, many of them really did not look like actual pumpkins.  I decided on one way of making a pumpkin and got started.

The method I chose was to fill a plastic bag with paper and tie off the top.  Then,  I tied it with string in four sections to represent the lobes of the pumpkin.  It really did not look much like a pumpkin.  I tried adding another set of four strings to make eight lobes.  It looked more like a squash than a pumpkin and once the paper filling the bags was squashed down it was not nearly as tall as I wanted my pumpkin to be.  Note to self: if you do this again, next time make sure the bag is overstuffed until extra firm.

I was still not satisfied with my pumpkin's height or shape.  I had to try something else.  I decided to head into uncharted territory and find a way to design my own pumpkin.  I looked online at pictures of real pumpkins.  The major difference was that real pumpkins have many more lobes than the pumpkins I was seeing in the tutorials.  I set out to figure out how to add more lobes. 

What I decided to do was to make tubes from newsprint and attach them to the plastic bag pumpkin I had already made.  Each tube is a half sheet of newspaper rolled into a tube.  The tubes were stuffed with crumpled bits of paper to make them a little more rigid.  Both ends of the tube are folded to a point and taped with masking tape.  After that, each tube was taped top and bottom  to the plastic bag pumpkin.  All in all, I added sixteen tubes.  (Whatever number you choose for your pumpkin, make sure that it is an even number.  More on that below.)  Now it looked more like a pumpkin than a squash.  After the tubes were all in place, I covered the whole thing with masking tape.

The next question was how is this going to help me make more than one pumpkin at a time.  I could put layers of paper mâché over this base, but I would tear the whole thing apart trying to get it out.  I also wanted to see what a pumpkin in this shape was actually going to look like.  I decided that I would add a divider so that the pumpkin shape would be made in two parts.  By having an equal number of tubes on each side, it was easy to divide the pumpkin into halves.  The divider was made from corrugated cardboard covered with foil and then with masking tape.  I marked the divider as sides A and B as well as noting which way was the top and which was the bottom.

After all of that, I covered the entire piece with a layer of Press and Seal (Available at grocery stores and some department stores).  Press and seal sticks to your base.  If you cut the Press and Seal into small pieces (small being relative to your project size.) you can adhere it to your base without having many folds or creases that can show up in your project.

Once the entire project was covered with Press and Seal, I gave both sides three layers of paper mâché.  The next step is important.  Make some registration lines on each side of the piece so that you can fit the pumpkin back together with the registration marks on each side matching.  Then, I used a craft knife to gently cut along the edge of the divider.  Once the edges of the pumpkin were separated from the divider, the two halves were easily pulled off the mold.

I used hot glue to glue the edges of the two pumpkin halves together, while making sure my registration marks matched up.  After that, a strip of paper mâché was added over the seam.  After that, three more layers of paper mâché were added to the entire project.

This pretty much catches up to where I am on this project.  I have made a base that I can reuse to make other pumpkins.  I also have plans to make a latex mold of the base that I can use to cast pumpkins in a different way.  I hope that the next step in mold making will allow me to make pumpkins even faster.

Next blog post I will go how I finished the face, eyes, and top.

Life Size Halloween Figure and Goblin Heads

 If you are interested in seeing how the figure was built, you can see it on this blog, by scrolling back to the dates of July 2108 through November 2018.   If you cannot scroll back to it from where you are viewing it, you can  input the following link:   folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com         The entire build of the figure is there.          

I actually began this project two years ago by making the life-sized figure.  The initial concept was for the doll to be a dancer.  The doll has a wide stance, as if she is just moving into a hip bump dance step.  Her hand was raised because I had originally envisioned her holding either a fan or a scarf.  The more I worked on the project, the less enamored I became with making the doll a dancer, but I also wanted to keep the option open.  The idea evolved more into what would I do if this was a Halloween figure.  (As my husband says, "It's always Halloween here.  He is referring to my constant fascination with making Halloween projects)  I wondered if there might be a way for me to have the doll as a dancer and some type of Halloween figure.  I think that might be accomplished by having changeable costumes.  

From a distance, she almost looks real.

I worked on this doll up until the day of Halloween. The doll was built, but I had no costume for her.  I decided to paint a black leotard on her just so I would be able to get it set out for Halloween.  Then, of course, it rained.  I never even set the doll out.  At that point, I hit burnout from working on the project so extensively that I no longer enjoyed the process.  I decided to set the doll aside until I felt ready to take the project on again.  I spent a year and a half working on other projects.

This year we have all have had to deal with Corona virus.  While we have been in lockdown, I started working on some pâpier mâché Goblin heads.  The heads came out really well.  I decided that maybe this doll should be holding some Goblin heads.  I could picture them hung on a rope.  I started thinking of her as the "Goblin Slayer".  The doll was returned to my project list.

A closer view of the Goblin heads.

At the moment, she still has no costume.  I do not plan on going out shopping for fabric during a pandemic, so the robe will have to wait a bit.  In my mind's eye I am seeing her in a gray (possibly hooded) robe and a few accessories.  I will engineer it with some hook and loop tape so that the robe can be removed. At some point I will also make some type of dance costume.  For the moment, she will have to hang out in her ballet leotard.  I don't think there is any hurry, the general consensus so far is that Halloween trick or treating will not take place this year due to Covid-19.  A local county near us has already announced that the Trunk or Treat event has been canceled.  That will not stop me from decorating for Halloween though.

The PVC armature for this project.

Because I was thinking about this project as having multiple costumes, I decided to make the doll with a normal face.  As most Halloween figures have either ancient witch faces or scary faces, I I thought I could make a mask that I could put on with hook and loop straps that hide under her hair for when I want a different face. I will probably be working on that in the not too distant future.

I haven't blogged about the doll lately, but I thought I would mention that my husband refers to this doll as a "real life Chucky doll.  She has on a number of occasions punched him when he came to close without being wary.  She has also punched one of our friends while his back was turned.  Generally, she does not punch me, but she has banged me on the head a few times.

Halloween Goblin Heads Painted

I have been working on this project on and off all year.  After a few bumps in the road, I have finished painting the goblin heads.  I am pleased with the results.  There are always things I would like to have come out better.  Sometimes if I keep trying to "fix" a piece that I end up just making a mess.  So at this point I am calling the heads finished.  Note:  If you want more information on the construction of the heads, scroll back through my previous posts at folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com   (I have been blogging about these heads since the beginning of the year.)

The heads were  made with hangers built in because they will be hung on a rope.  
 
I liked the color of the heads.  They have a lot greens and reds, giving the heads a mottled color.  Ithought I would blog a little bit about the painting in case someone might be interested in how to achieve that outcome.  When I was new to crafts, I thought I could just slap on one color of paint and it was done.  I was always disappointed with the outcome.  It took some time to learn how to paint a piece so that it was interesting.

The heads are made from paper mâché.  Before the heads were painted, I sanded them fairly smooth using a sanding block.  I don't do a lot of sanding, I mainly want to get rid of any flour paste lumps and high spots.  There are a number of low spots, but I was not trying very hard to get rid of them.  The low spots help with creating the mottled appearance.  What I was really trying for with the sanding was to call it good enough. 

After sanding, I gave the heads two coats of white Gesso.  The Gesso covers over the print on the strips of newsprint used to make the heads.  It also helps seal it and fills in some of the depth of the low spots.  I let the Gesso dry thoroughly between coats.

I used acrylic paints for the project, but they are better quality paints, not craft paints. 

The inside of the head was painted with Mars Black.

Base color and tooth detail.

The areas around the eyes, gums, and lips were painted with a mixture of Burnt Umber and Cadmium Red Light.  I actually had to paint them a couple of times because my first mix had too much red in it.  The red was too bright.  I ended up going over the areas with a washes of Burnt Umber until I could knock the color down some.

Brushing Raw Sienna over a small area.

The teeth were painted with four layers of paints.  The first layer was a mixture of White and Raw Sienna mixed with a little Pearlizing Medium.  I was hoping to give the teeth a more enameled appearance.  I was not that impressed with the results though.  The next coat was a watered down wash of Burnt Umber.  I selectively painted it into the crevices and low spots in the teeth to make them look dark and decayed.  The third coat was a stronger mix of Burnt Umber in only some of the crevices and low spots.  The last coat consisted of tiny dabs of straight Burnt Umber in even fewer spots.  The multiple coats of paint gave the teeth a lot of depth. 

Wiping off excess to leave paint in the low spots.

 The base coat for the heads was a mixture of Cadmium Yellow Light (dominant color) and Payne's Grey (mixing color).  I don't have the proportions, I just mix until I like the color.  It created a bright green. If I had added more Payne's Grey, it would have turned a more gray-green color.  However, I wanted the base coat to be very bright.  The translucent nature of the color also allowed more light to pass through and hit the bright white of the Gesso, allowing more light to bounce back through the paint.  My husband came in at that point and I told him it was only the base coat.  He said, "You would never know."  I could have stopped there, but I felt that I could do better than bright green.

Raw Sienna is dabbed on, then lifted off.

The mottled appearance was achieved by working in a small area at a time.  Using a bristle brush, I scrubbed on Raw Sienna on a few square inches, feathering the edges so that there would not be a hard edge.  As soon as the paint was on, I used a paper towel to scrub the majority of it off.  The paint tended to remain in the low areas, and leave only a thing sheen on the majority of the skull.  I might have to do some areas a couple of times to be satisfied with the result.  Next, working in the same area, I would use a smaller stiff brush to dab on dots of paint.  Then, I would carefully dab the dots of paint with a paper towel trying for a dab and lift without smearing the paint to far.  I think the results were satisfactory.  If I did not like it, I could wipe it off and repaint the area again until I did.

I let the heads dry completely for a couple of days just to make sure they were well dried.  After that, I gave it two coats of Exterior Satin Acrylic Sealer.  I would have preferred a Matte finish, but I had not been out to buy any due to the Corona lockdown.  I used what I had available.

These heads are part of a larger project.  Check back in about a week and I will have some new pictures of the project.


 

Halloween Goblin Heads Ready for Painting

Goblin heads ready for painting.

These heads are part of a larger project.  I am working on a life-size doll for Halloween.  She is supposed to holding up the heads of the Goblins.

I started the project thinking I would make some gruesome shrunken heads.  However, the project was not going well in a number of areas. Things were just not working as I planned.  Sometimes it is just better to figure out something better than the original plan.  So I changed my plan from shrunken heads to Goblins. 

A Coke can for size reference.

I had drilled holes into the heads because the mouths and eyes would have been sewn shut.  I needed to do something with the holes.  I had made eyes for the shrunken heads, but the eyes were small because they would have been dehydrated.  They were not going to be the right size for a normal head.    Rather than trash the project completely, I cut out the eyes and mouths with a craft knife and filled them in using paper clay.  Hopefully, those areas will not be as noticeable once the heads are painted.  The noses were also small, but I left them, because who knows what a Goblin nose looks like anyway.

First strip layers over the skull mold.

One of the skulls removed from the mold in pieces.

I painted some flat back glass marbles (the kind used in floral and home decorating) with black glass paint and heated them to make the paint bond permanently.  (By the way, I have a small dedicated toaster oven for these projects.  It saves on having to clean a home oven after using that product.)  I ran into some unexpected problems with the eyes.  I made three pair of eyes all painted the same color: black.  I wanted the eyes to be a solid black.  There are no pupils, just a deep soulless eye, something like a shark's eye.  When they came out of the oven, one pair was black, and the other two pair came out with one black eye and one eye that looked silver.  Unfortunately, these decorator marbles are not very consistent when it comes to size.  I had picked out each set of marbles so they would match in size.  I painted some more eyes, and the same thing happened, but since I had made several of them I was able to mix and match.  I have no explanation as to why some of the eyes changed color.  I would guess that it has something to do with how the light is refracting through them.  

Anyway, with enough eyes in hand I began to mount the eyes.  This is a retrofit project.  If I had been doing this project from scratch I would have done it differently.  When I made the faces, I molded strip paper mâché over a plastic skull.  When I had enough layers on, I cut the head off the skull mold, then put it back together using more layers of paper mâché.  (While I had them apart, I also made some modifications to the skulls.  See earlier posts for details on how I made the modifications and how I put the skulls back together.)  Rather than take the whole head apart again, I used the holes I had carved into the face to place the eyes.  If I had started from scratch, I would have painted the inside, and mounted the eyes and teeth while I had the head apart.

While the eyes and mouth were open, I painted the interior black.  It would actually have been better to mount the eyes before I painted the inside,  but then I would not have had the eye holes open to use for painting.  I would have preferred to glue the card stock directly to the paper mâché, but since I was also adding paper clay, I was not too worried about the stability of the mounting.  I once saw a tutorial on the internet in which the person reminded everyone that to glue pieces together before painting because your glue job was only as sturdy as your last coat of paint.

I mounted some black card stock to the underside of the holes for the eyes with hot glue.  This was the backing to hold the eyes in place.  The glass eyes were hot glued to the backing.  Paper clay was pressed around the eyes and underneath the lids to fill in the eyes.  It was a difficult job trying to mount the eyes while slipping my fingers in through the mouth hole.  I would swear that those creatures were biting me.  Sometimes it was difficult to get my fingers out.

Once the eyes were mounted I turned my attention to the mouth.  When you cut into a strip paper mâché piece, you can see the layers of paper.  I used a small dental pick type tool to push a hole in between layers and separated some layers slightly.  I twisted a very thin wire tightly at the top, and then left an opening in the middle of the wire, then twisted tightly again at the bottom.  I pressed the wire into small bits of paper clay and formed a tooth.  The opening in the middle of the wire would lock into the clay to hold the tooth in place and keep it from slipping once the tooth was dry.  When the tooth was formed, I put some multi-purpose glue in between the layers of the paper mâché and also added some glue along the gum line.  I stuck the bottom end of the wire into the hole I had made and pressed the layers of paper mâché back together.  That "rooted" the tooth.  The glue along the gum line also helped to keep the tooth in place.

I found that making the paper clay teeth sharp while trying to put them in place was too difficult.  You can do one or the other but not both.  I shaped them as best I could, and waited for them to dry.  The teeth were sharpened using small needle files.  I suppose if I had thought about it a bit further, I could have made the teeth and painted them before mounting them.  However, I am not sure I would have made them so that they would look right for a particular mouth if I had pre-made the teeth.  I did what I did, and now I am ready to go on to the painting.

I am excited to see how these heads are going to turn out.