How tall do you intend to make it?  And what country are you in? I've never made anything that large, but here are some ideas.

It sounds like you'll need to use a wire mesh as an armature.  If it's to be tall (6-8ft/2-3m), I would use welded fencing wire, like the 2"x4"/5x20cm  mesh size.  You could tie it together with wire or cable ties (zip ties).  The natural curve would be used to your advantage. 

If it's only to be knee-high or something, you might be able to use just chicken wire.

Decide how wide you want the wave (top), then tie suitable lengths of the wire mesh together (overlapping by 12"/30cm for a strong join).  Using somewhat shorter lengths, I would make the inner part of the wave by joining to the top at the front edge of the wave.  This would make the base more stable.  I'm not sure about how to do the sides.  Gussets?

One problem that you'll need to anticipate is that when wet paper is smoothed over wire mesh, it stretches, and the paper sags in the mesh openings like a hammock.  I am thinking that once you get the basic wave shape formed, you might want to cover it with smaller mesh chicken wire (octogon poultry mesh).  Even that may show through several layers of papier mache.  I'm hoping that someone with more experience using wire mesh jumps in here with suggestions.*

Once you have the wave formed the way you want it, and possibly anchored to a sheet of plywood or something (plywood is lighter than chipboard, for ease of moving), you could start papier macheing it.

I would use larger sheets of newspaper:  Lay down a sheet on a safe surface (probably covered with plastic), use a paint roller to apply the adhesive to one side of the paper, then smooth it onto the wire mesh.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.

By the time you get this far, you'll be understanding how the material works. 

Be sure to let it dry before you paint it.  If rain is a possibility, you'll probably want to apply a final coat of varnish or Varathane.

*For the paper-sagging problem, I would advise that you take a couple of small samples (12"/30cm square) of both kinds of the wire mesh, tie them toether, then apply glue to some paper and apply it to that mesh and let it dry.

Sue

Um, I dunno if this will work or not, but how about using a large sheet acetate? You can tie it to form the shape, then cover it with paper slabs. Thick enough, these should be strong enough to withstand a one-time use outdoors.

Whatever method you use, I'd like to see the result! Something that large is bound to be impressive. Post some pictures, eh?

It is relatively easy and you will just need to follow the instructions from Russ and Jackie.

Go to visitors gallery page and click on the blue writing.

"open your own gallery."  Follow the instructions and e-mail your request in.  You will get an e-mail with a user name and login password that will get you to your gallery page.  The key thing to remember with any jpeg files that you upload is to keep them small.  Too big and they will be rejected.  I tend to open my files in irfanview and then resize the image down to 800 x 600 pixels.

Happy posting

Hello All

To explain how we made the Ocean Wave. 

We used chicken wire shaping it as we went, starting from the back moving forward with the wave.  We stapled it to plywood as we shaped.
It worked out well doing it this way.

We started out using wallpaper paste but didn't lke it so ended up using flour glue that I made up.  It took five batches of glue to do the whole wave from start to finish.

We spray painted it blue then sprayed white for the white caps.  The day of the parade we are going to spray christmas snow on the water coming into shore to make it look foamy. 

It seems like a lot of work to go through just to use it for an hour.  After the parade it will be destroyed.  But thats life.  We enjoyed making it together.

My helpers in the pictures are Barb, Brenda and Patty (Patty has termial cancer and is my rght arm at clogging class and shows.  She plays our music for us, I'm going to miss her terribly.)  The children are my grandchildren Jordan and Jake, who were a big help, they dipped as we applied. 

Thanks to all of you for your suggestions they really helped.   

Jan