In my paper travels online, perhaps as on yours as well, I came across an adorable young man's versions of Canon's
paper canary hidden inside their paper model cage. He had made the birds out of brightly colored papers and fastened them in groups in the tree branches in his back yard. I was charmed. I printed out just the canary portion of Canon's Creative Park bird cage model and started to see what I might make with these too.
I envisioned making these as fun easy mini-pinatas* that could be used as tiny gift boxes (for an engagement ring, "A little birdie to me you were the one." perhaps?)
I used the pattern to cut the three shapes needed in plain construction paper. I found taping the seams together was far less fiddly than trying to glue them. Next I used Elmers
art paste gel (vegetable starch) on thin brown bag paper to seal the birdie's assembled body shape. Then the wings and body were covered in fringe cut layers of cerise tissue paper. Wire legs glued into holes made on the underside, innocent eyes inked on with marker, beak covered in yellow tissue--Voila!
These are fun to make and tuck all over the house, the feet form to fit on the lips of teacups, for example. A sweet decoration. Or perhaps as party place settings filled with little sweets!
(*a traditional
Mexican party game where tissue-covered candy-filled shapes are broken open with sticks to shower the children with candies.)
(**If anyone has that young man's link, please let us know!)
A fun new series of papertoys from Macula, Base Folk. Several great characters all based on a simple humanoid form, my fave Rev. Psychopomp (above). Been a while since Macula has released a new toy, great to see some new stuff from him. Download for free from his site here.
Chris Roberts has some really nice sculptures with lots of character made of Nike shoe-boxes on his site. Thanks Zach for the link!
Faced with the disaster in Japan this last month, me and my coworkers at C3 felt we needed to do something creative to help the people of Japan. Paper Koi is an ongoing project to benefit the Red Cross. For a suggested $10 donation you can download a Paper Koi, the blank template and then you can check back periodically over the coming weeks for new designs by other C3 artist. I designed the template and my pal Steve Duffendack did the surface design for the first Koi in the series, pictured above. Check out the Paper Koi site here to make your donation and download the templates. Thank you for your support on this project.
