Made by John Sharp
Not paper mache, but inspired by projects in the Animal Sculptures book. I use the same type of inner scaffolding Jonni uses. I have uploaded a camel and gomphothere before, made in the same style. Today it’s a 9’ Asian Dragon, made for an event at the botanical garden where I work, in honor of the lunar Year of the Dragon.
The infrastructure is a 2D silhouette in plywood. I attached strips of discarded lawn edging and hoops cut from black nursery pots to fill out the body, and covered it all in palm fronds, ti leaf lei spirals, banyan roots and other “yard waste.” I offset the hips and shoulders with two-by-two boards inserted through the silhouette, although the legs are not that visible.
The hardest thing was getting it to stand upright, since the legs aren’t functional and it is very heavy. I used 3/4” marine grade plywood, which was overkill—much too heavy.
I meant we make the lei from the frozen leaves, then put them back in the freezer until needed on Memorial Day. Sheesh, how many times did I proofread that before submitting it!?
Thank you for your kind comments, and for your inspiration. We spend months making lei from ti leaves, Cordyline fruticosa, a luscious-looking tropical leaf. They are frozen to make them more flexible, then not braided but twisted, as you would spin yarn or make rope. These lei go on the graves of service members at the National Cemetery of the Pacific, otherwise known as Punchbowl Cemetery, then we pop them back into the freezer until needed. We had leftover lei this year, so we dried some out and hot glued them in spirals on burlap, which was sewn onto the chicken wire base. Malika Dudley has a clear video, “How to make a ti leaf lei,” on YouTube. You could use corn husks or other leaf with long, strong fibers.
I had help with the ti leaf lei part.
The “fins” and tail are from fan palm fronds, the ball, from banyan roots, the eyes are coconut shells. Horns, whiskers and belly scales are various parts of palm trees.
Thanks for the updates, John. That was really helpful. 🙂
Hi John – your dragon is quite impressive! I’ll bet it got a lot of attention at the event. 🙂
By the way, your dragon’s ‘scales’ are very interesting – how did you make them?