Daily Sculptors Page
Join the conversation and share your paper mache sculptures with our supportive community.
No artwork to share today? That’s OK, too… We’d love to hear from you. Just scroll down to the bottom of this page and use the comment form.
The latest photos from our readers:
My first Paper Mache Sculpture! Had so much fun! Going to create a life-size unicorn next for outside. Thanks for all the awesome tips I found on this site!
Leslie, this is your first? Can’t wait to see the next—and the next—He’s ghastly and really quite beautiful. Thanks for showing us. Happy Holidays!
Leslie, this is great. Kind of cute & creepy at the same time, I love it! Good job!
I agree with the others — so fun! Love the eyes and the wrinkles and those teeth! Great job!
Hi Everyone, Here’s my latest project–Squirrel and Bird at Tea. I’ve never used resin before but would like to put something in the teacups that looks like liquid. Resin seems pricey. Any cheaper suggestions for the tea?
Here’s a close up of the Squirrel
And here’s the Bird . . .
. . .
Hi, Aaron
Your tea party is too cute. Seems to me the smaller projects are more difficulate to work with. When I do my paper sculpting and need a high shine, I just use high gloss clear acrylic spray.
You could fill cup with crumpled paper give a light coat of Jonnies Magic paper mâché. Add tea color to the mâché.
When dry spray with clear high shine, 3 or 4 coats . Maybe stick a tea bag in.
Aaron, your sculpture is adorable. I can’t help but think that you were telling yourself a story while you were making it.
I have no idea how you could make the tea look transparent. Clear plexiglass? It would be hard to shape and polish. Maybe someone will come up with an idea for you.
Aaron, I use hot glue, but admit it’s not great. If you haven’t already rejected the idea, please try it on something disposable (that won’t melt) first. Wonderful sculpture BTW.
Hey Shelbot, thanks for the feedback — I’ll give it a go and let you all know if I have any luck!
Hi Aaron, I love your sculpture. How about using clear plastic you find in toy wrappings and maybe color it tea color and put it in the cup. It is easy to do, cheap and should give you the illusion of having tea in the cup. And it will be transparent.
Hi Christine, Great suggestion. I’ll experiment with it and see how it goes.
Jonni, You got me started on Christmas so now I can’t stop. Made this little decoration from paper mache and paper clay.
Hi Karen – now we went to see that little decoration, but the image didn’t come through. Try again?
Sorry about that I thought the resizer said 239 when I sent it. Not sure what happened there because when I pulled it back up it said 279. Anyway it should go through this time.
My, you are in the holiday mood – what a nice, loving image. Great expressions, too. Thanks for giving the upload another try.
Jonni, Speaking of the holiday mood, your site makes every day like Christmas morning. Or at least like a box of chocolates? Anyway, wanted to say: Happy Holidays to you—in case my mind’s too gone later on. (Hope I’m joking) Love ya!
Gosh – thanks! And I hope you’re joking, too. Nothing like art to keep the brain sharp, in my opinion.
Karen, those polar bears are adorable. That little cub just melt the heart strings. that would be a great tree ornament.
Karen, choose any superlative you like about your bears and other artwork and I will agree. Happy Holidays!
Karen, thanks for the bears. I am amazed at your talent. The textures are fantastic, and the whole thing is so happy. Love the eyes and face on the mama, and the baby couldn’t be in better hands. Very happy sculpture.
For this past Halloween, I made this mask from a ski mask, foam, using a hot glue gun and paint. This is the human fly. The top is a black turtle-neck shirt. I used a hot glue gun and dropped beads of the glue onto the shirt to simulate the texture.
Sidney, this is a marvelously inventive costume. You must have scared the daylights out of everyone who saw it! And your workmanship is excellent – congratulations!
Thank you! Jonni 🙂
Sidney, Awesome fly costume.
Thank you! Shelbot 🙂
This is creepy cool! Love the textures!
Thank you! Karen Sue 🙂
Sidney, great costume. That must have been a great hit with other Halloween revelers.
Thank you! Christine. The reactions were as expected. 🙂
I think this is my favorite Halloween costume. I would love to see it, but I’m glad you didn’t show up at my door! Awesome coloring and creativity. Go to the head of the class (or wherever you want – I won’t argue). Great.
Hi everyone,
Here is my first attempt at a mask – Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas (sort of!) – made following the examples in Jonni’s Making Masks book.
Thank you for the excellent book and website. I wrote up the whole process with pictures on my blog for anyone interested: https://straydogstrut.co.uk/2016/11/01/making-the-jack-skellington-mask/
Your Jack turned out really nice – and you wrote a great tutorial. I hope you had fun on Halloween!
Straydogstrut, I love your JS mask.
I finished my moms pumpkin bowl for her 80th birthday.
It looks fantastic Sabina! Did you hollow the bowl after the paper mache dried?
Thank you,this is old fashioned paper strips and paste,I used a balloon, then sawed the top off with a hacksaw
It looks really nice, Sabina. Your mom must have been very happy to receive it. Tell her happy birthday for us, too!
Thank you ,I will tell her
Sabina, Beautifully made pumpkin bowl. Lucky mom. Best to her and you!
Sabina, I adore this pumpkin. Your mom is very pleased, I’m sure. I love the coloring so much and the stem. I’ve probably made over 70 pumpkins, and this one beats them all in beauty. How did you get that mottled orange color?
I love the idea of making a bowl out of it. Very creative. Thanks so much.
Thank you,I used different shades of orange and green tissue paper. She uses it as a candy bowl
It’s beautiful. And that’s a great photo, too.
I see there are a number of posts where the photo is not the right size. Frustrating. I don’t know if this will help anyone — I know Jonni posts a program to reduce the photo size. When I download photographs (either from phone or from camera), I load them in a free photo program online called Picasa. You can easily crop photos there, as well as other editing features. You can also “export” photos to another folder, and you can designate the size of the download. If anyone wants further instructions, I can put it together for you.
I would love to see what people are doing, and I know at times it isn’t hard to get thrown off the track. (Happens to me all the time.)
Rex, I didn’t know about this service. I just Googled it, and it looks like it’s a Google service – but they’re moving it to something called Google Photos. Why do they keep moving and changing things that work?? Anyway, thank you so much for this advice. I’ll add a link to the top of the page – I think a lot of people have problems uploading photos because they’re using mobile devices, and I think you found our solution. Thanks!
Hi,
Lucylou
I’m using my ipad
How big are your photos? Can you find the file size of the photos in your iPad? If they’re small enough (under 250 kb) then perhaps someone else with an iPad could help us. I don’t have one, so I don’t know if there’s something special you need to do.
Hi,
I’m having trouble getting my cropped pic to your sight
I see that. Are you getting an error message? Is the file size less than 250KB? Are you using a PC or a smartphone? If I can have more information, I might be able to help.
Some Halloween beasts I made with knowledge from Jonni and Dan the dragon man.
Hi Francoise. Did you intend to upload a photo? If you did, it didn’t come through. The image was probably too large. Please edit the photo and try again – we’d love to see those beasts!
Hello, again
This is Lucylou
Nancy, are you trying to upload a photo? It isn’t working – are you getting any kind of error message? Have you edited the photos to make them small enough?
Yes, I don’t know how to make the pic smaller.9
Did you try using this service: http://www.picresize.com/#
Or, most cameras have a setting that allows you to choose how big you want the pictures to be. I don’t know if the camera in a phone has that option or not.
hello, again
I forgot to send my paper mâché dog, Lucylou
Hi Nancy. The picture isn’t coming through. It’s probably too large. You can use this free online service to reduce the size – it’s really fast, and it works really well: http://www.picresize.com/#
Hello,
My first paper mâché piece is of my Gooldendoodle. She passed away half way thru, so it was hard to finish. Lucylou was 115# sweety. My piece is true to size.I Started with newspaper and masking tape. No armature. I used your paper mâché reciepe. That is the best stuff. I also made paper towel balls for the hair texture.
Hi Nancy. I’m so sorry you lost your good friend. It must have been a struggle to create her portrait after she passed away. If you tried to upload a photo so we could see her, it didn’t come through. The image size was probably too big. I hope you’ll try editing the image and try again – I would love to see it.
I tried your Santa idea with a version of my own. I decided to add arms and eyes. I did not use foil but just used paper mache paste and twisted paper towel. Not really pleased with the the nose and excess glue. But turned out kind of cute in the end. Thanks for the inspiration!
And the bell on his hat was a great touch! He’d make a nice tree ornament, too.
Oh my goodness! He`s so cute! I Love him 🙂
Karen, how did you get Santa done so quickly? I love what you did with it. (I’m moving in slow gear these days.)
Jonni really got me inspired and now that I am retired I have the time. It really only took me a couple of days. It was a fun little project.
Karen, your Santa is adorbs.
He is adorable!
I want to let you know that I’m shutting down the forum. Very few people signed up, so the great projects that were posted on the forum weren’t seen by very many people, and that’s a shame. The system also wasn’t set up to let me know when someone posted, so I just wasn’t keeping up.
Besides, this page is a much better place for showing off your work and asking questions, anyway. I hope this won’t cause anyone too much distress. Some ideas just don’t work out as well as we hoped, and the forum was one of them. sigh …
Awe… what a wonderful site
Thanks!
After waiting patiently for the drying time to pass, I made her hair. Cloth hot glued to her head, ripped into strips from the bottom up, painted with Gesso & positioned where I wanted it. Again several coats with drying time in between. I finished painting her today & will seal her at a later time.
She’s amazing, Judy. Thank you so much for showing her to us, and telling us how she was made. I really look forward to seeing your next project, too.
Love this! Beautiful patina finish!
Thank you Karen Sue Dill,
I painted her at least 4 different times lol
Judy, I love the textures that you created. The face is really nice. And she would make a nice calm feature for the prow! (I know about painting things a bunch of times!) It adds a wonderful texture to it. Thanks.
Judy, your mermaid is gorgeous.
This is beautiful! I appreciate your how-to since I’ll be creating a unicorn and was brainstorming the hair. I think your technique will be perfect. Amazing sculpture!
Hi,Leslie
I made her hair out of twister paper towels with mâché, same idea as Karens super cute Santa.
As I covered her tail, I drew scales in the wet Gesso
Hello Everyone.
After watching many hours of Jonni`s tutorial videos I have completed my first Paper Mache project, a 5 foot tall Mermaid.
Step 1 … I started off with a form (card board, stuffing and lots of masking tape)
Step 2 … using Jonni`s recipe for “Paper Clay”, I covered the form from head to toe, front and back.
Step 3 … Then I discovered Jonni`s recipe for “Silky Smooth Air Dry Clay” & repeated Step 2, allowing her to dry completely first
Step 4 … I made a batch of “Jonni`s Home-made Gesso” & repeated Step 2.
Judy, your sculpture is beautiful. Thanks foe sharing it.
Thank you Jonni. I could not have created her with the help of your tutorial videos 🙂
Judy, this is a fabulous mermaid! She looks very peaceful and pleasant. It is hard to believe this is your first paper mache sculpture! Do you mind my asking where she will be residing? After all, it is not everyone who has room for a 5 ft mermaid in their living room!
Great work indeed! Reminds me lots of things, including those sculptures some boats used to have on their…”fronts” 🙂
Thank you so Pedro,
That is exactly what I had in mind while making her. I hope to do another in the near future that will look like she came right off “the front” of a boat 🙂
Thank you Eileen,
She is indeed my first piece. And for the time being she will hang in our hallway. In the spring she will be moved to my Shoppe where she will be for sale 🙂
Judy, be sure to let us know when you’re ready to find her a new home. One of our readers might live in your area. You never know!
Judy, this is beautiful. Very creative way to make her hair, and I love the colors. Great job!
Hi all once again.
I gave some vacation to blogging, paper props and painting and decided to focus, also for financial reasons, a bit more on my etsy shop. First I tried some animal portrait on paper mache canvases but, thought more upon exploring the miniature dolls I had been doing previously, so refreshed the entire shop with new title, looks and some more dolls even if only history directed, doesnt matter.
ANYWAYS, icon wise, thought upon making some really popular figures in order to grab some atentions and my first non historical character was the ultra famous Captain Jack Sparrow. This fellow took me a bit more time to built as he’s so full of details – those belt buckles almost drove me blind!!
Hope you like it.
Thanks
He looks quite dashing, Pedro. I just checked your etsy page, and you’ve been busy! I’m quite fond of your Louis XIV, with all his ruffles and fur. I hope your new shop is a huge success!
Thanks Jonni, fingers crossed! 🙂
We’ll all send you good vibes.
Feeling them already! <3
Wow, Pedro, he is amazing! I love all the little details. Good luck with your etsy store!
Double thanks Teresa. It was indeed interesting how I manage to achieve “that” and if without having a face I do think its rather explicitly portraied (aww, the magic of art making! Eh eh eh
Awsome turtle “flock” by the way! 🙂
I agree with Jonni, dashing! And I understand the belt buckles. Great figure.
Thank you Good Sir! 🙂
Great details!
Thanks Karen 🙂
Terrific detail! Arrgh matey!
Thank you Good Sir! Love your crest post too, gives me lots of ideas … 😀
Pedro, he is so cool. Usually the face is the most important part to me, but your costume details are fantastic.
Hi Shelbot, thanks!
Being (also) a portrait painter I love faces but on these little chaps I decided not to do them because of the scale, guess it would be lots of work and would look just terrible in the end. From an outsider perspective I actually dont feel there’s a great gap between the person that its supose to represent and the actual final result because pose wise and detail wise its all there, so … 🙂
Thanks for such inspirational comment 🙂
Here is a pic of my latest finished project. I love turtles, and I’ve wanted to do this piece for a long time. Making turtles was a little daunting, they have so many parts to fit together. The shells and log are made of pink insulation board covered in paper mache clay. The turtle body parts are made with Apoxie Sculpt.
Here is a closer pic
Very cute Teresa! The little one looks so cute relaxing up there with his grin. Great job!
Thanks Carrie!
Great piece Teresa! The detail on the shells and the log is just fabulous! Who doesn’t like turtles? I did a similar type piece a few years ago, entered it into an art show and it sold the first night! I had a chance to meet the buyers and they bought it because it reminded them of going down to vacation on the Chesapeake with their children. A piece like that would speak to memories of a lot of people. Nice job!
Thanks Eileen!
Can’t help put smile back at that little guy. Thanks for posting this.
Your sculpture is beautiful, Teresa. I love the detailing, and the character in their faces. Thanks for sharing them with us.
Thanks Jonni!
Wow, Teresa. That is a really beautiful sculpture. Too impressed for words, really.
I tried making a turtle, but it never made it. I think I made the top and the bottom and never the twain did meet! When you say pink insulation board, do you know if they make that in blue. The reason I ask is I have some blue and would love to give it a try again (after I finish my warthogs, etc.). I love using the blue insulation foam for separators between body and legs because it is more “solid” than regular Styrofoam.
Really a great job.
Thanks Rex! I’ve not seen blue insulation board, but maybe it’s the same thing. It’s like styrofoam but very fine-grained.
I think that is it. Thanks so much. If I find the right stuff, I won’t use Styrofoam for legs again. Revelations never cease!
Beautiful work!
Thanks Karen!
Teresa, really great turtle sculpture. Love the markings on the shells and the texture on the skin.