In Miss Landay’s Period 3 Sculpture class, her students are working on a fascinating project.
Students are creating faux taxidermy. Faux taxidermy is creating fake taxidermy-styled sculptures.
Deer heads are the most popular taxidermy form, but other animals can be taxidermied like pets who have recently passed or any other wild animal.
In this project, students had to choose the animal they wanted to paint. Miss Landay was extremely flexible with letting her students choose any animal they wanted to.
The students had to sketch out the animal they had selected on paper to get an idea of the different perspectives of the chosen animal.
After the sketch, students got to carve out the animal’s side profile into cardboard. This took a ton of time for the students as they had to be extremely detailed.
When the cardboard cut-out was completed, the students had to create the flat back of the animal which would be the mount to the wall.
The next step is taking the newspaper and building the project up. This requires a bunch of tape, and being extremely precise. The students must roll the paper and tape to fit into/ mold the cardboard.
They build up until the animal looks realistic.
The students then take wheat paste, dip newspaper into it, and smooth it out over the animal. This creates a hard layer on the animal to secure the newspaper and tape together.
The students then paint the animal however they want and add any details like fake eyes and hair if they would like.
This project is very fun, and very liked among students.
When asked what he liked about this project, senior Brennan Frazier said: “I am doing a deer for this project. I like this project a lot because it’s very relaxing, and you can freestyle and do what you want to do.”
“The Faux Taxidermy project is actually one of my favorite sculpture projects because it encourages my students to figure out how to start with a two-dimensional idea and profile and build a three-dimensional form of an animal or creature of their choice,” Miss Landay said.
“I am a big supporter of giving my students choice in the art classroom, and this project allows the students to make many decisions, such as what the animal/creature will be, the size, what style they would like to paint it in, and if they want to add a backing or dress it up in any way with textured materials.”
Scan the QR code to see a video of this process in action and to hear from Miss Landay and several students in the Sculpture class.
Miss Landay also likes that all the materials used for this project are easy to find outside of school, so students can pursue this project out of class if they want to create more.
Miss. Landay created a big fish project for the musical “Big Fish,” which she also used as an example for her students.
