MadModder
Gallery, Projects and General => Gallery => Topic started by: vtsteam on December 12, 2014, 09:16:29 PM
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And now for something completely different!
Last year around Christmas I decided I wanted to make some catfish out of paper mache. So I rolled up pieces of newspaper with some masking tape and applied more newspaper wetted with flour and water over and shaped them. I dried them by the wood stove. Then I painted them white. I made 24 of them -- a whole school.
A common type of catfish in the Northeast is the bullhead catfish. But in Vermont they are called "pout". They are usually dark gray or brown, so since these were white and I made them in Decemper, I called them Christmas Pout.
Here are just a few of them:
(http://i786.photobucket.com/albums/yy150/vtsr/vtsr/Artwork/ChristmasPout1sm.jpg)
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Nice one.
Have catfish got some sort of association with Xmas in the US?
Are you going to make the french-fries to go with them? :D
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Well made - lovely catfish!
Only have one question:
Why? :smart:
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They look realistic! :thumbup:
Well done....... :clap: :clap:
David D
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Thanks boys!
Kinda hard to explain why -- partly it was just a goofy thing to do. Partly I wanted to try paper mache after reading my daughter's book on making masks that way. Partly it's because I used to imagine making a whole school of black ceramic catfish to put out as lawn ornaments -- but I have never made ceramics and don't own the equipment. Partly because I like catfish -- catching them -- and if channel catfish, they certainly fry up well. But also because they're mysterious and weird. Prehistoric seeming.
I hung these on the wall as a sort of sculpture at a small local coffeehouse, located in a basement. Made some white lily pads to go with them. It looked like you were viewing down from above the water. Not what you usually see in a coffeehouse in a basement.
I wanted to make a mobile of them afterwards, but never did. Thought that would be cool to see overhead, like they were swimming. But they got a little wrecked in a paper bag all jumbled up when I brought them home and kept moving them around to store. And one day my wife asked if I really wanted them, I decided no, and they left with the dustman.
So here's the only evidence they ever existed -- a photo. The last school of the now extinct Christmas Pout.
And no, catfish aren't associated with Christmas in the States. It's the usual reindeer, etc. here.
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in a word nice :thumbup:
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I haven't heard catfish referred to as pout in a long time. Since living in New England...
Very nice. Wish I had some artistic ability.
Eric