I’m working on several projects at once at the moment. One is making a set of those flying ducks that people had as wall ornaments when I was growing up. I’ve been lent a couple to model from, and looking at them up close I can understand their attraction, despite their kitsch reputation. Since the ones I am making are theatre props they only have to look like the real thing. Inside, they have an mdf structure, and I have bulked them out with polystyrene. I like carving styrene, except for the mess.

The next part of the process is covering the shapes with a commercial paper mache pulp. It starts as a dry mix, and when you add it to water it turns into a thick paste, which can be smoothed on and sticks to most surfaces. Here I’m half way through adding the paper mache to the big duck:

The pulp takes a couple of days to dry, but I’m always impatient with things like this, and I have been hurrying it along by putting the ducks in the sun,

and the oven:

I’ll have to add more detail to the shapes, like the eyes, tails and feather patterns, and then its a matter of getting the surface smooth and painting it to look like china.

We have four beautiful white pet Indian Runner ducks, and it was funny to see them charging across the back garden in a line just as I was photograhing these in the kitchen.