After it is covered with a single layer, sprinkle it with water. Place the dry tissue paper in the mold (or on your form).As it dries you get a tighter bond with fewer air bubbles. And finally, it makes the paper swell slightly. It also makes the paper more pliable for going around corner. It helps the pores open up and absorb the paste better. (Printer paper with disintegrate if you do that, so, um, don’t.) This is much like the stage where you soak fabric before dying it. If you’re using heavy paper, like paper bags, put the pieces in a bucket of water to soak. You want a soft edge on the paper so it will adhere better and more smoothly to the other pieces. Tear the paper into 6″ pieces (approximately).I use the Zen method of mixing till it feels right, which for me is like cream of wheat or a melted milkshake. Add more if you need to for the right consistency. Shake a SMALL amount of the paste onto the water. (Trust me, you will appreciate having to stop and wash your hands to make more.) Cover the bottom of the pan with cool water. Mix your wallpaper paste in a shallow container like a pie-plate (anything will work this is easiest).Plaster mold (optional) If you know how to make a plaster mold it is easier and faster to work into a negative than to papier-mache directly on the form.Regardless of whether you are doing direct papier-mache or working into a mold you don’t want it to stick when it’s dry. We will use this to separate the paper from the form. As long as it’s not the same color as the bags, a similar weight, and it is uncoated it will work. I use either leftover printer paper (recycling) or scrap pages out of my sketchpad. You do need paper that’s two different colors so you can tell what areas you’ve papier-mache and what you haven’t. The fibers are short and it has no structural integrity of its on. The important thing here is that you don’t use newspaper. Why wheat? It has glucose in it, which binds with the cellulose in paper making a much stiffer and stronger wall, so you need fewer layers. The first thing to do is make sure you’re working with that right stuff. I’ll show you a technique that will only need three layers and can be danced on. I know, we’ve all had the experience of the lumpy paste, and corners that stick up and a thing that requires years of sanding to even resemble smooth. Done well, papier-mache is light, strong, fast, and non-toxic. Papier-mache is one of the oldest forms for creating puppets and so a lot of people think that there must be something better out there.
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