paper mache panda

I wanted to post some pictures of Sela's paper mache project. She won't be keeping it since she chose to make it for her friend, Morgan, for her 10th birthday. Morgan loves pandas so Sela chose to make a panda. Nina did the same project and made a momma and baby hummingbird on a rock, but her project is not finished yet. They begin the project by deciding on the animal, looking at pictures of the animal and studying how to form the body. Then they make the body out of foil, then wrap the foil in tape, and finally paper mache the animal (at least this is what the girls tell me). When I picked Sela up on Wednesday night from art class, she was disappointed (understatement!) to discover that her panda wouldn't be dry in time for the birthday party. It only had 2 days to both dry and be painted. If you paint paper mache before it's dry it can mold from the inside...not good, especially for a gift. Luckily, Suzy, Sela's art teacher, was so kind to put it in front of their wood stove and surprisingly it ended up drying overnight so we were able to pick it up and paint it at home. Sela was so very excited when she came home Thursday and I had the dry panda! She painted it upstairs in the barn while I did yoga downstairs on Thursday night. We were up pretty late, but the panda is darling and Sela was so excited to present it to Morgan at her party.