The photo is of a whippet sculpture, made by my friend and frequent commentator on this blog, Madwippit, aka author Karen Bush. (Not only an author, but an expert horsewoman and riding teacher, a dog-trainer, and now we see, also a pretty nifty sculptress.)
Karen says:
Here's a picture of a papier mache greyhound I made of Maxi for her owner, who won it in a charity auction.
Karen Bush
Karen sent me the photo because of my post last week, about my persistent brain-worm that pestered me to make a Green Man mask. I woke up with the idea in my head of making one out of papier-mache – I suppose simply because we used to make paper-mache things when we were kids. I seem to remember the older of my brothers setting out to make a brontosaurus (he was mad about dinosaurs). The thing ended up looking more like a cat, so he painted it black and called it 'Tiddles.'
Karen has knowledgeable tips about papier-mache (as well as horse-riding on a budget, and planting dog-friendly gardens.) She says:
This is quite encouraging. I can feel the call of papier-mache pulp and PVA. But I must resist! I have the Sterkarm book to finish; I have an outline to work up for my agent (which I haven’t even starting thinking about, but which I have Davy researching. That is, he's reading a book he wanted to read anyway, and reporting back to me on it.) And next week it’s the Scattered Authors' Society's four-day conference, and I haven’t even started to begin to think about organising myself for it…It's fun - have a go. It's also cheap - newspaper torn (not cut) into strips is perfect (tissue paper is good for the finishing layers) - wallpaper paste is easy to use and keeps for weeks and weeks - make up a small batch and keep it in a tupperware type container with a lid. If you want to sculpt more you can make your own papier mache pulp but it's a bit of a faff and much easier to buy it in dried form which you add water to - use an electric hand mixer to whizz it and add some PVA glue to make it a little more plastic and stop it from drying too quickly. The pulp sets like rock when it's dry. I prefer using just newspaper, but pulp is handy for detail like toes or the coats of shaggy dogs.Look forward to seeing your Green (Wo)Man!Karen :-)
But just look at that lovely whippet. Could I make something as good as that? Could I?
If you want to see more whippets, have a look at Karen's blog here.
And if you're interested in ghostly Black Dogs, you might like my contribution to Lucy Coats' Fantabulous Fridays blog here.
And a review of mine is up on the Awfully Big Blog Adventure's review wing here.
If you want to see more whippets, have a look at Karen's blog here.
And if you're interested in ghostly Black Dogs, you might like my contribution to Lucy Coats' Fantabulous Fridays blog here.
And a review of mine is up on the Awfully Big Blog Adventure's review wing here.
