Primary materials: CelluClay, plywood, armature wire, newspaper, tape, acrylic paint.
I’ve found that CelluClay, and papier-mache in general, has a tendency to become heavy and static looking. A sculpture can begin with swirls and spontaneous lines, but by the time they are ground, sanded, patched, reinforced, made symmetrical, painted, and sealed, they’ve become stultified. So my main objective here was to capture a sense of movement and dynamism. Three twisting arms seemed like a cool shape that could accomplish this.
The base is made of plywood.
I used armature wire for the arms, wrapping the wire in newspaper to bulk it out, then covered it in CelluClay. I like complicated organic-looking shapes and patterns, so I went with that for the arm ridges.
Creating all these ridges, then grinding them smooth, then painting them, was a lot work. But I didn’t run into any major surprises during the process.
Overall I’m quite happy with how it turned out. I think it does have a sense of movement to it, and is different and interesting to look at from every angle.