I've been asked by a friend to make a large, 3D sculpture of an animal in the Chinese zodiac to be carried in a boat parade during the opening of the new Chinese Reconciliation Park here in Tacoma. About half the animals were already taken so I chose dog from what was left over. It seemed appropriate to my life right now. They need to be about 4 feet tall/wide and light weight enough to carry on a dragon boat. I have no idea how they are actually going to be used. I will find out on September 29th!
First, I started by researching the Chinese Zodiac and printing out some dog examples. (see above) I decided I didn't want the Pomeranian style dog so I went with a little more stereotypical, yet stylized, dog. But he's a happy dog.
I drew him on a one inch scale and then roughly transferred him to a one foot scale on cardboard. My friend Kim is also working on this project and she gets giant heavy duty bike boxes from her husband's work. Handy.
I cut out 2 body silhouettes because a) it's supposed to be 3-D and b) we need to have a tube in his body for a stick to hold them to go inside. The one at the front of his body is just to balance it out. I bought a long piece of plumbing pipe at the hardware store and then just cut them to size with a hack saw. I used heavy duty adhesive to glue the pipes to the cardboard and taped them down to hold them in place while drying.
Next, I applied glue to the tops of the pipes and set the top cardboard down and weighted it with books.
Good to know my art history textbook from college still has its uses! The tail is not glued in yet, I just set it there for looks.
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