I don’t recall the last time I paper machéd. I remember making some recycled paper out of newspapers in about 6th grade, but I’m not sure if we ever paper machéd in grade school. I’m sure that I haven’t done it since. So when my boss came to me and told me that he would like me to head up a project to make a big paper maché high-heeled shoe for an event the hospital was putting on, I was curious, and a bit excited.

It isn’t always easy to walk in someone else’s shoes (in this case, a sculptor’s), but it is nearly always a learning experience. There is a lot of time spent figuring out how they do what they do, how much work goes into it, and how much knowledge and expertise it actually takes to do what they do. This project was not a simple one, but the learning process was extremely fun, and is definitely something I hope I can investigate in the future. Who knows, maybe I just stumbled upon my next hobby. (:

View more pics (as well as the process) after the jump.

The gathering of the materials. In this case, it was a roll of construction fabric, a bunch of newsprint (we actually only used 1 pad), some Elmer’s glue, a few cans of spray paint, a few bottles of glitter, and some other miscellaneous supplies.

I started by taping a few pieces of paper to a shoe I borrowed from a coworker, and then tracing out the shape of the different pieces: the sole, the heel, and then two pieces for the upper. I used these tracings to project the shape onto the construction fabric via overhead projector. Next, I used some snips to cut the pieces out of the construction fabric.

Once I had all four pieces cut out, I used some zip ties to stitch the pieces together. The zip ties worked great because they were strong and I could get them super tight. I used about 90 zip ties for the whole project.

Here is the entire skeleton assembled and ready for taping. I’m actually a little sad that we machéd it. The skeleton is kind of cool.

I duct taped all of the edges as well as the seams, where the fabric pieces overlapped or were held together with zip ties. This made the piece easier to handle (I’d already cut myself once) as well as made it easier for the newsprint to remain intact.

Paper maché time! Three-inch strips, dunked in 1:1 Elmer’s-to-water mix, finger-squeegeed, and then applied. If I’d had more time, or were to do this all over again, I would have done less machéing at a time. Any place where the newsprint hung and was not resting against the fabric, it pulled apart from the fabric and wrinkled.

We put two coats of maché on all the visible surfaces, but just went with one on the sole of the shoe.

Here is what it looked like when the paper machéing was done.

Two coats of regular spray paint on all surfaces.

We applied a ton of spray adhesive, and then four bottles of glitter. A matte fixative spray provided a final coat in hopes of protecting the glitter while on the shoe. I guess we’ll find out in time if this worked.

Once again, here is the end result: a 4.5′ long paper maché high-heeled shoe. It is going to be used as decoration for an event the hospital has coming up, and then who knows what will happen to it. I’ve already had a director of another department tell me about an event coming up in 2010 that she may want a couple of pieces for. So, I may have the opportunity to hone my paper machéing skills in the future. It beats some of the production work I’m doing. (: I hope you enjoyed the pics as much as I enjoyed trying something new.

For anyone who might stumble upon this in the future, if you’d like more detailed information on the process, feel free to email me. My email address is “chris” at this domain.