I teach advanced 3D Art at a school without a kiln so I have to be creative with the materials that we use. Luckily, we do have a ton of cardboard from discarded delivery boxes and you can actually make quite a bit from the cost-effective material. At the beginning of the year, we talk about using intersection of the different planes and axes to create 3D forms, so I decided to have my students make intersecting animal busts to practice this concept and they turned out really well, even though they took a long time to make.

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Materials for Cardboard Animal Busts

For this project, you will need the following supplies:

• Lots of scrap cardboard
• A ruler or measuring stick
• An Xacto knife and cutting mat
• Masking tape or spackle
• PVA glue (Elmer’s glue)
• Hot glue and a hot glue gun
• 20 gauge wire or a sawtooth picture-hanging bracket
• Sand paper 
• Gesso
• Assorted Acrylic Paints
• Plastic Plates (These work better than plastic palettes, and clean up better too)
• Some larger acrylic brushes
• Spare newspaper (to lay under sculpture while painting)

Designing Animal Head Sculptures

The students had to really put in a lot of planning before starting this project. They had to think of an animal that would be recognizable based on it’s profile. They then had to think about the form of the animal’s head and how to represent that form through “slices” of space that would make up their sculptures.

Each student needed to have two profile views of their animal to start. These profile pieces needed to be exactly the same so that they wouldn’t warp or bend when putting in the intersecting pieces.  (If two profile pieces is too challenging, you can limit the students to one profile piece and the sculpture will still work, but it might not be as sturdy.) The profile pieces also needed to have a flat side at the back end of the head so that they could fit into a mount piece when the entire sculpture was finished.

After the profile pieces were cut, the students had to measure across those pieces and mark evenly-spaced lines that would act as the slots to attach the intersecting pieces (As shown in the image above). They also had to cut out intersecting pieces. The intersecting pieces had to measure the length of the profile in the area where they were going to be placed. The two slots also had to be evenly spaced from the center so that the pieces didn’t warp when they were put into place. If the slots were cut halfway up the bottom of the profile, they had to be cut halfway from the top of the intersecting piece so that they could fit together.

Students could fit the pieces together like a puzzle as they were working to make sure that their designs were going to be structurally sound (see image above). I made sure that none of them started gluing the pieces in place until they were 100% happy with their forms.

Assembling the Animal Head Sculptures

Once the students had finished cutting all of their pieces and they were happy with the way that they fit together, they could start gluing them in place. We used regular PVA glue at this stage because the sculptures were very structurally sound just from the intersecting slit method of constructing. Students could use hot glue though if they had any difficulties with the PVA glue.

The students then needed a mount for the busts. They were encouraged to look up frame or trophy shapes as inspiration for the mount pieces. They then drew and cut that shape out of cardboard. They cut two versions of the shape, one slightly smaller than the other. This created a beveled look when the two pieces were glued together. The students used hot-glue to secure the two pieces together. They then measured and cut slits in the middle of the mount to attach their animal bust. In the picture above, you can see where the ends of the two profile pieces are inserted into the slits and secured with hot glue.

Painting Animal Bust Sculptures

When all of the individual cardboard pieces had been assembled into one large sculpture, the students could start to prep for painting. Because we used cardboard, some of the sculptures’ edges were a bit rough. You could see the corrugation and it took some of the charm away from the final piece. To  combat this, students could use one of two processes: Cover the edges with masking tape or use spackle to fill in the edges.

When applying masking tape, students just laid the tape along the edge and then cut slits in the tape on either side so that it could be folded over the edge without wrinkling. When using spackle, students smoothed the spackle into the edges of the cardboard and then waited for it to dry. They then lightly sanded any excess away.

We then used gesso to prime the animal head for acrylic paint. Students who use a darker color of paint may be able to skip this step, but the gesso does provide a nice grippy surface for the paint to adhere to.

Because the animal heads were somewhat modern in their construction method, I encouraged the students to choose bright colors. They also had the option of painting the entire sculpture one color or creating a value scale of light to dark with one of their colors. I also had a few students who I allowed to use more than one color because it made sense for their sculpture (rainbow unicorn).

Once the sculptures were fully painted, I helped the students attach wire or a hanging bracket to the back of the sculpture so that it could hang on the wall. We just made two loops at the end of a small piece of wire and then covered those loops with hot glue so that they would stick on the back of the sculpture and make a hanger. The brackets could be nailed in, but we also added some hot glue to those to make sure they were secure as well.

The students worked exceptionally hard on these sculptures, and the results were fantastic! Who would have thought that they could create such bold and colorful sculptures with cardboard. They always amaze me with their creativity.