My project is finally done! Since it took me such a long time to figure out exactly what I wanted to do, I had a lot of work to do this past week. Last week I said that I wanted to try a statue head flower pot and then after my post I realized that would take me forever with my level of sculpting skills. So, instead of a statue head I went with the route of a classic pillar/column flower pot that I thought of earlier just with paper Mache over sticks as the material choice. I got some supplies including Elmer’s glue, a roll of paper towels, masking tape, and an empty bin I found laying around. I first had to mask off the bin with the tape because the paper wouldn’t stick to the slippery plastic that was on the outside. Then, i started to mix the glue with water (which took an interestingly long amount of time to find the right mixture ratio), dipped paper towels into it, and stuck them to the bucket. After 2 coats it started to look better and then I added the top ring, bottom ring, and middle bars for a Doric-style pillar look. This was made by me folding paper towels hotdog style and applying glue to stick it to the side of the bucket. After the ridges were made, I went over them with another coat so that the indents would look continuous. I didn’t want to do another coat as I did not want to cover up the ridges with thicker layers. After all that dried, I used white acrylic paint to give it more of a white coating to it which also helped the texture look like marble/stone/concrete. Since I didn’t have a flower that was ready to be potted, I got some faux flowers and grass to visually aid the project as to how it would look in a room. I wanted to focus on the correct texture and shade of white because I knew if I made it too grey and smooth than it could get confused for a trash can and the aesthetics’ color pallet calls for lots of simple light colors as it helped the audience focus on the form and craftsmanship over the color.
Overall, I learned a lot from this project as this was my first time using paper Mache since probably middle school art and I really enjoyed how I had to “trust the process” throughout the entire time. The only thing I wish I could change about the project would be making it slightly taller as it would be more easily recognizable as a pillar.
https://api.unrulr.com/public/posts/earthlike-privatize-irrigate/share
The link above will take you to my unrlr journey which will detail my whole sculpting process in full. Below you will see images of how the project turned out, what my initial drawing for the project was, and what my inspiration was.
