I made a (near) life-sized papier-mâché manatee. He is pretty awesome. A few months ago I just really wanted a manatee buddy so I walked to Blick and got some wire to make an armature and set to work on this manatee buddy. Soon I'll hang him from my ceiling, I'll post pictures of that once he's up. I have nice high ceilings so he'll have plenty of room to swim around.
He's a male manatee because he's only about 7 feet long, and the males are shorter than the females. Even that is on the small side, so maybe he's an adolescent. (A manateen, if you will? Sorry, I had to!)
I haven't decided on a name for him yet! I could continue the puns and name him Hugh (oh, the Hugh Manatee!) but I'd like to come up with something that suits his personality.
There are some process shots at the bottom of the post. You can see at first I was making the tail wrong, it was more like a dolphin's tail which would have made my sculpture probably a dugong rather than a manatee. Dugongs rock too, I just wanted a manatee buddy.
If you don't know about my love for manatees, or just how awesome manatees are in general, you are missing out. They are these badass, chill guys and gals who just hang out all day eating leaves. Can it get much better than that? No, it cannot. I would like to hang out with some manatees sometime and just float around being herbivores together. (Technically I am not actually an herbivore because I also eat fungus and sometimes honey from happy bees. But I would be if I just chilled with manatees eating lettuce all day.)
It's okay, you can be jealous of my awesome papier-mâché manatee.
BUT, if you're ever feeling down and wish you had your own manatee buddy, instead of being jealous of mine you can visit Calming Manatee, a wonderful site and tumblr blog run by another lovely manatee buddy and its human typist.
(Also pictured is Darby, another buddy of mine. He is a six month old Corgi puppy and as you can see, he also likes manatees.)
3 comments :
Great job on your Manatee! Very well constructed. And I love how you obviously love your project. That's how good art is. It is very satisfying to have something start inside you and end up outside you, if you know what I mean. Congratulations!
Thanks for stopping by Dan! So glad you included a link to your paper mache, it's fantastic! And thanks for saying my manatee is well constructed, I am a bit self conscious about how visible the pointy wire armature is. I was going to smooth it out but since I am hanging him I was worried about him getting too heavy, and he's nice and idiosyncratic this way!
I have not always been so thoughtful. This book is putting me over the edge, I am kind of crashing into myself. Unfortunately, once the error of my ways hits me in the face, I must change. ugh
Bulldog Puppies
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