Here's a fun little project that's infinitely adaptable--making your own tiny painted animals. I made a pigeon, sparrow, blue jay and robin, to sit on a branch I found in a Bed-Stuy gutter. (Why would you want to do this? I don't know, why wouldn't you??)
I've never been good at sculpting clay, but fortunately, you only need a roughly-correct shape for your little animals to come out gorgeously.
Things you need: Sculpey (I bought the "hazelnut" color because I liked the idea of little bits of brown poking through, but white might be easier to paint), armature wire (just for their little claws, if you want them to be able to grip the branch), and some acrylic paint (I bought four colors--white, red, yellow, blue). And a paintbrush. And an oven.
The process is very simple.
1. Form the shape of whatever animal you're sculpting--look up reference photos! Different birds have surprisingly different body shapes.
2. Bake them according to whatever type of Sculpey you bought (with my Sculpey III, I did 275 degrees F, 45 minutes).
3. And then the fun part--paint them. I painted mine in stages, with basic colors first and then little feather details on top. They really came to life with the paint. It was a very exciting experience.
as you can see, I didn't spend a ton of time perfecting the little clay bodies. which was fine!
the first layers of paint were rather loose and general.
all together! <3 <3
i couldn't resist making a little clay suki as well...
I think she's into it!
PS Here's how to make a rubber stamp business card. And other DIY posts are here!
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