|
Having never made anything like this before,
the first thing I had to decide was what do
I make it out of? I decided that the best, low
cost option was to use papier mache applied
over a frame made from wire netting (chicken
wire).
Before starting the build, I needed a basic
design. Google Images is always good for
inspiration, so I searched on "snowman"
and "Oliver Cromwell" and found
some useful pictures. I then did a couple
of sketches and had a rough idea of what I wanted
to do.I knew the design might need to adapt
to suit the materials I was going to use.
 The
first part of the build was to construct the
frame.I bought a roll of wire netting, and used
this to make two cylinders. Cuts were then
made around the top and bottom of each cylinder,
and the netting was bent and fastened to form
two large "snowball" body sections.
The two body sections were then fixed together
using wire. Next, two pieces of wire netting
were used to make the shoulders.The edges of
the wire pieces were bent over to secure them
to the body.
 OK,
so far so good, but how was I going to make
the head? Various materials had been suggested
to me (including polystyrene), but by now I
felt pretty confident in using wire netting,
so decided that Id use strips of netting to
form the basic head shape. It also allowed
me to model Oliver Cromwells long hair. Finally,
I used more wire netting to make the arms and
hands.
With the frame finished, I could then start
on the papier mache. For the first layer, I
used newspaper and PVA glue. Getting the paper
to attach to the wire was tricky, and with hundreds
of pieces of paper to glue on, it was very time
consuming. But at least I could now see the
snowman taking shape.
 For
the second layer, I used white A4 paper. This
went on easier, but was still taking a long
time so I hoped the snowman wouldn't need a
third layer!
It was at this stage that I had to make some
modifications to the base to increase the diameter
and make the snowman more stable. It was an
unwanted delay, but these happen when you're
making something for the first time. I had some
good news though when I tried fitting the snowman
in my car. It just squeezed in, so transporting
it to the church would be easier.
 Back
to the build and I knew the most critical part
of the snowman would be the face. So having
finished applying the white paper layer, I started
to construct the basic structure of the face
using cardboard (old cereal packets!) held together
with parcel tape.
 I
then used more cardboard and folded pieces of
newspaper to add features like eyes, eyebrows,
nose, lips, etc.A skin of papier mache was then
applied.
After applying an additional layer of papier
mache around the base, all that remained was
to paint the snowman and make the sword. I chose
a textured ceiling paint as this was thick enough
to cover the edges of the papier mache paper,
but was still quite flexible. For the sword,
I used the handle from a broken garden rake.
Holes were cut in the top and bottom of the
snowman's hand to locate it.
It was great to see the snowman in the Roses
of Eyam production, and I was pleased it survived
the week of performances!
Building the snowman was hard work, but
very enjoyable and my advice to anyone taking
on a similar project is to just have a go;
you'll be surprised what you can achieve
and it's very rewarding in the end. Good
luck.
Free
DHTML scripts provided by
Dynamic Drive
|
145x145.gif)
