Ronnie Burkett’s Paper Mache Recipes and other things
Jul 14th, 2005 by Hil
Having seen Ronnie Burkett’s amazing Tinka’s New Dress in its last season at the Melbourne Festival in 2002, and heard him speak so inspiringly at the Puppetry Summit there at the same time, I was interested to see Burkett’s article on paper mache (via Puppetry News and Views).
The article talks about recipes for making one’s own paper mache pulp, and the various situations they are useful for, but Burkett also says that much of the time he now uses a commercial papier mache pulp called Celluclay. I thought it would be ideal for a court jester’s marrotte that I was making, but its hard to come by here, so I tried Mix-It, which is made in Victoria. When I tried an instant paper pulp before many years ago, it was quite lumpy, but this mix turned out to be nice and smooth to work, and dried really hard and white.
Wow, your head turned out great! I am so tempted to try papier mache or the other paper clay products. I even took an online course! But I find it very hard to find the time to explore a new medium and technique- maybe sometime!
Hi, I appreciated the article. Papier Mache has become an obsession with me. I especially have been experimenting with making a papier mache pulp which when hand sculpted will have an even more smoothe look. Half of the fun was trying the different proportions to mix. I am getting into making the Japanese Ningyo paper dolls. I am experimenting with cloth and the pulp. It is very difficult to find book on this Japanese art. I have found one but they do not address the size doll I would like to make.
Anyway, Its great to know Papier Mache is alive and well.
Thanks for your comment, Jaquie. I don’t know Ningyo paper dolls, but earlier this year did a workshop on the ones you make with molded paper mache heads. If you are interested my blog article about it is here:
http://spiritsdancing.com/sdblog/2008/04/20/479/