Balance is the trick. Whatever appeture you use (chicken wire, thick corrugate rolls, wood, etc.) you must make certain your large sculpture has a center of gravity. Build your sculpture from the ground up. Whether you're applying pulp or the strip method, do a heavy base coating and light upper coating. When your light upper coating dries you can begin to apply another coat for desired thickness, texture.

karen
www.farroutart.com

yor advice really helps me! thanks a lot!

ill try to upload a picture of my sphinx once it's done. though i doubt that will happen anytime soon.

Hi all, I am planning to work with paper mache, what I am looking for is what are the best materials used for outdoor garden sculpture and can paper mache be made to work in that way for long lasting durability in the weather? What I am planning to do, and my experience is limited, is to design some lifesized artifacts of white smooth, not shiny ideally, surfaced female nude figures, they will be free formed, so they do not need to be anatomically accurate. One other question I have, I am working on some one foot sized models with wire but not sure about using chicken wire around the wire pieces for form, I have been looking for illustrations in depth demonstrating the process of building armatures. I have limited means, so I have been looking online and at the library, but nothing that complete in the process so far, I will buy the book if there is one that could be suggested here. Thanks all for listening.

Tobias

Thanks, David, styrofoam sounds good for building the forms the way I want them to be shaped, a hell of a lot easier than with chicken wire, but it does not have enough weight. Maybe there isn't anything that is durable enough for outdoor weather and here in Providence Rhode Island it is one mile per hour on average windier than Chicago is. Thanks for the information. If anyone has information for the most durable outdoor sculpture that is the least expensive please let me know. Thanks all.

Tobias