Introduction

Paper mache is the cheapest way to make a sculpture. All you need to get started is newspaper, flour and water.

The flour and water get stirred together to make cheap, thin glue. The newspaper strips are dunked in this glue and draped over some form, creating a skin. When this skin dries, it maintains its shape. Shazam! No chisels, no kiln, and no fumes.

Unfortunately, the lifespan of paper mache is short. The paper skin is flammable, susceptible to moisture damage and attractive to insects. You should not let this discourage you. I've found that the temporary nature of paper mache projects encourages fun and experimentation, two pillars of studio art.

Get Started!

You should try to draw it first.
I suspect that most people reading these instructions will already have a project in their mind, and they are just looking for the paper mache glue recipe.

Here it is:
Paper Mache Recipe
3 cups water
2 1/2 cups flour

For other people, this is when they should expand upon their project idea, to get a clearer idea of how their project is going to look when it is completed. One way to do this is to draw it. Another way is to print up a few images from the internet. I suspect that some people reading this might protest having to draw their project first, but I still encourage it. By attempting to draw it, you will face and solve a bunch of little design challenges before you get your hands dirty.

For example, if you have the idea to make a paper mache alligator, and you don't draw it out first, you will probably start building a long body shape, and attach legs after that is finished. For example, the legs might end up poking out perpendicular to the body, because the design will be made up as you go.

Prepare Armature
As you probably know, this type of newspaper mache is usually only used for the skin of your sculpture. A skin covering something else, for example a balloon, a chicken wire figure, or a bunch of cardboard boxes taped together. This internal structure is called the armature.

Balloons
Balloons are the easiest to use for small projects, such as hats, cats or masks. Regular-shaped, extra-large and the long balloon animal kind can be combined for a lot of different shapes. The rounded surface makes a nice finished product.

The downside is that balloons tend to deflate in one or two days, so any projects built with them need to be completed and dried in that time. Quick-drying techniques can also backfire with balloons, because they can expand, busting through the new paper skin. I've also used a couple cousins of the balloon to build an armature: Inflated plastic packing pillows and bubblewrap.

Cardboard
Cardboard alone is not usually used as an armature for paper mache. It is already flat and strong, so there isn't much reason to cover it with more paper. However, if you are, for example, creating a robot with a bunch of angular cardboard panels taped together, a new paper mache skin can smooth the places where the panels meet.

Other heavy paper is well-suited for building an armature, such as cardboard tubes from wrapping paper rolls and Fed-Ex shipping tubes.

Chicken wire
For anything bigger than Donald Trump's head, I suggest using chicken wire for the armature. Chicken wire is the name for lightweight metal fencing, typically with a hexagonal pattern. It is sold in 10-foot rolls for about $6. A typical use is to cut wide strips and roll them into cylinders to form bodies and limbs.

Chicken wire isn't that easy to work with. From a material-handling point of view, it is sort of a cross between sheet metal and fabric. Also, the wire ends tend to poke you. I usually use a pair of wire cutters to cut rectangles to work with. Wherever the chicken wire needs to attach to itself, the loose, pokey wires along the edge can be easily bent into each other, twisting up a tight, permanent seam.

You will probably find that gloves will be more trouble than they are worth, because your fingers have to dance through the holes as you work.

Past the size of a laundry basket, a chicken wire structure is too flimsy to support the weight of wet newspaper. Therefore any large sculptures will need a skeleton underneath. I recommend using 1x2 lumber and wood screws.

1. the skeleton for your sculpture will need to be very close to the surface of the skin.
2. You will be stapling or tying chicken wire directly to the skeleton.
3. Large flat areas of chicken wire are usually weaker than curvy areas.
4. If the bare skeleton can stand up by itself, the finished sculpture will probably stand up too.

People, plants and animals look more natural if they aren't made up of 90 degree angles. It isn't as easy to screw them together at odd angles, but they will look a lot better in the final result.

Two-liter soda bottles, fed-ex shipping tubes, the plastic from sour cream tubs and crumpled aluminum foil are also good choices for building cheap armatures.

Protect your work area
Blah, blah, blah, lay down plastic or an old sheet, or work outside. The flour and water mixture really will dry like glue, and be impossible to remove from your clothes, shoes, tv remote and floor.

Make paste
I've seen a dozen different recipes, but I've never noticed an important difference in them. I recommend using just flour and water.

Step 1: Go to the bathroom. Your hands are going to be in warm water for the next 45 minutes, so you might as well empty your bladder before you get started.

Mix 3 cups water with 2 1/2 cups flour. I usually use my hand for mixing because it is easy to smoosh the chunks of flour and get them mixed in to a nice thick soup. Warm water is more enjoyable, but optional. I'm sure that this paste would work in both a very thin and a very thick consistency, but I prefer a particular viscosity.

Make your paste as thick as pancake batter. Thinner than honey. Thicker than tomato soup. Thinner than white school glue. Thicker than egg nog.

Strip tease
Next you will need some strips of newspaper. Hold a section of newspaper (up to 10 pages) and tear off 2-inch strips. The paper should tear neatly down the page, resulting in long strips. I think tearing works better than cutting because the torn strips tend to have thinner edges.

As you tear off the strips, toss them into a loose pile. With luck, the bundle of strips will flutter apart a little bit as they land. This should make it a little easier to grab individual strips when you begin using them.

I don't know how many you will need. Make a big pile. If you mess up some of the strips, making them too thin or too thick, just throw them away.

Also, avoid using the extra glossy ad inserts from the newspaper. Those don't absorb paste as well, and finally, don't use strips which have a sharp fold along them, they don't lay flat.

Paper Mache!
With all the prep taken care of, it is time to start dipping some strips into the paste and draping them across your structure. If you are like me, you will find that putting the strips on is pretty fun.

Hold one end of a single strip of newspaper and dunk it into the bowl of paste. The paste is actually too thick for the newspaper to sink, so you should use the other hand to poke it into the bowl. You don't have to completely submerge the strip. As long as at least one side is gooed up, it should work.

Pull the strip out of the paste and hold it above the bowl. If one side is totally dry, I usually use my hand to smear a couple of globs of paste onto it.

Next, use a two-finger squeegee move down the length of the strip.

This will scrape off most of the paste and spread it around. Ideally, when you get to the bottom of the strip, it will be completely wet, with just a thin layer of paste covering the whole thing.

Lay the strip across your structure. It might not have much "stick" at this stage, especially if you are working with chicken wire. I recommend starting at the top of your armature, where gravity won't pull it off. Once the strip is on the structure, smooth it down flat with your hands.

If you are really having trouble getting the strips to stick to chicken wire, try poking one end through the hexes, and touching the end of the strip to itself. Once you have a few strips on there, it should become easier.

Wet newspaper tears easily, and it sticks to itself, so it takes a little experience to tame these strips and get them onto your sculpture.

Overlap paper strips at wild angles, covering every inch of the sculpture frame. It is difficult to keep track of which areas are thinly covered and which areas are thick, but I'm going to give you the following guidelines anyway: If the internal structure is a balloon, or other temporary structure, you will need to use about four layers of paper to create a self-supporting exo-skeleton when this paper dries. If you have a rigid armature, such as chicken wire or soda bottles, you only need two layers.

Use half-strips or smaller pieces in areas where long strips are ungainly, such as where the surface is made of sharp angles.

Do not start the crossword puzzle as while you are gluing the strips down.

Be sure to smooth the strips down with your hands. This isn't as important in the beginning, but it is very important for the top (final) layer.

The wet strips of newspaper should be smooth and they should conform to the shape of whatever they are covering, just like a wet T-shirt. The edges of each strip should be stuck down. If the paper is popping up off of the surface, try smearing an extra couple of tablespoons of paste onto that part of the paper.

Beginners can find it surprising that the sculpture is turning out to look exactly like the armature. That it doesn't hide flaws. They also may find it difficult to "build up" places in the sculpture (such as constructing a nose or ear) with wet paper. Maybe I should have mentioned this earlier.

I find it very satisfying to apply the final strips. Check the entire surface for small holes between the strips, and try to keep the finished surface smooth.

Larger projects need more than one session of paper-applying, because you won't want to work on the feet while the hat is still wet.

When you are finished applying paper, clean up. Store the unused paste covered in the refrigerator, or just throw it out and make fresh stuff tomorrow.

Depending on the temperature and paper thickness, it will take between three and thirteen hours for the paper to dry. If your sculpture contains balloons, do not try to hasten the drying with direct sunlight or a heat gun. The heat can cause the balloons to expand, bursting out of their paper shells. Fans are OK.

It is easy to see when the paper is dry. The color becomes much lighter.

Behold! The paper mache sculpture is finished, ready to be finished with paint or crepe paper.

Painting
Before you start painting, take a critical look at your project and see if there are any defects in the skin. Paint can only fix pinholes. Any holes larger than that may actually be easier to see when painted. Holes can be covered with more paper mache strips or with spackle.

Every type of paint seems to work with paper mache. Latex house paint, craft paint, spray paint. The only problem I can imagine arising is if the paint is so sloppy wet that it softens the paper mache. One coat of paint is usually enough.

I'm no expert at painting, so I have almost always chosen color schemes which are plain and cartoonish.

And that should do it! Now that you have read all of the above, you are more than ready to give it a try. Good luck, and don't forget to take photos while you are working, not just of the final result.

To read more about the projects featured on this page, please read my other paper mache-related articles:

Paper Mache Globe
Paper Mache Alien
Paper Mache Elvis
Fisherman Alien
Paper Mache Hummingbird
Paper Mache Satan
Ketchup Packet Bear (wireframe only)
Dwight Shrute Bobblehead

Please continue reading page 2 of Easy, Illustrated Instructions on How to papermache.

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