Art Safari - We Made a Papier-Mâché Pet and So Much More

What a great day for creating art at the Torpedo Factory!  There was clay, painting, felting, block printing, papier-mâché, bottle cap necklaces and so much more.

Visitors were captivated by Lisa's sculpture of a large dog and his inviting gesture.  He started the day as cardboard tubes and chicken wire. By the end of the day, he was book page and black dot spotted dog!  

Lisa welcomed the public's participation in preparing the materials for papier-mâché.  A group of students who were visiting from a visual and performing arts school mixed the water and paste, and they helped tear newspaper strips for the initial layers.  After many layers from many working hands, the dog had to rest.  And so did Lisa!  There was much excitement and interest in working on this special dog.

After the initial layers had some time to set, everyone began covering the dog in paper that came from discarded books.  (Don't worry, no readable books were used in this project!)  

Finally, Lisa and some young friends worked in her studio to punch black paper dots, which became the final details added to our hound.  

UpCycle supplied and manned a nearby table offering the opportunity to make bottle cap necklaces.  You could punch a variety of papers, dog pictures from our ALWA Photography event, and magazine images to fill the bottle caps.  Sequins, glitter glue and smaller pieces of punches of paper were also available to make each bottle cap special.  After decorating, the bottle caps were punched, had jump rings added and the creator could select a ribbon for making the necklace.  

Here are some examples of the bottle caps that were filled today.

This event was made possible in part by the project grant UpCycle received from the Alexandria Arts Commission.  UpCycle sends a special thanks to Lisa Schumaier for her creativity and inviting spirit.  Everyone felt welcome to contribute to the dog sculpture (and to even explore her studio!).  We would also like to thank the Torpedo Factory artists, staff and volunteers for running such an enjoyable event.  Finally, we'd like to thank Port City Brewery for the bottle caps; we always appreciate their cast-offs from the bottling process.  We estimate that almost 300 bottle caps were filled today!