Carving a little sculpture from craft wood?
For an art project, I want to make a small tree (about 8-10" tall) with branches. Well, at first I considered making it out of paper mache, but I want to keep it when I'm done, and paper mache will get bad after a couple years. So i thought about carving one out of craft wood.
What type of wood would be best? Balsa wood - the kind I can get at hobby lobby? If not, where would I go? What should I know before I start?
As mentioned, balsa wood isn't easy to "carve" and making branches would be even more difficult.
I think your best bet would be some kind of papier mache, or even a paper-based clay (like Creative Paperclay or the rougher dry Celluclay), probably over a wire armature.
Those materials will NOT go bad over the years *as long as* you seal the papier mache or paper clay well since they're not waterproof (use a few coats of polyurethane--gloss, semi-gloss, or matte), permanent white glue like Elmers GlueAll thinned 3 or 4 with water, etc., or even acrylic paint, as your sealant.
If you're interested in some lessons and tips on making "trees" with branches like that, check out this page at my polymer clay "encyclopedia":
http://glassattic.com/polymer/houses_structures_gingerbread.htm
(...click on the category called *Scenery, Landscaping, Trees, etc* for various different lessons on making 3-D trees)
Btw, you could use those air-dry clays I mentioned with many of those lessons or polymer clay if you want... sometimes the wires are built up a bit with masking tape or floral tape before adding the clays too.
And if you use polymer clay in particular, there are ways to make polymer clay look like "bark" without even painting it... if you're interested in that and more on making bark look "carved," check this page:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/faux-turquoise_wood.htm
(...click on the category called *More on Faux Wood (+ bark, knots, gnarled, carved, etc)*
And I think there's more on the bare kind of Halloween tree on this page too:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/Halloween_etc.htm
(...click on *Scenes & Dioramas*)
HTH,
Diane B.
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