Making Coralina, the Giant Papier-Mache Whale!
The Southeast Regional Library (Wake County Public Libraries, Raleigh, NC) only started offering limited in-person programming in June, so the staff had a bit more time leading up to summer than normal. Melissa Schultz, Youth Services Librarian, was inspired by Salina Yoon's whale artwork for Tails & Tales and started dreaming about a giant whale hanging in the children's area.
She kept talking about this idea until one of their library assistants sent them a video by Make Anything on how to make a papier-mache whale. After getting the green light on this project, she reached out to more staff, and together, a team of us designed, sculpted, painted, and decorated a 7-foot-long whale that we named Coralina!
They used foam core and chicken wire to make the frame, then did traditional newspaper papier-mache for the first layer. They next made a clay mixture that provided great texture after it dried. Then, they painted her with acrylic paint and ink, used Sculpty clay to make the barnacles, and sprayed the entire whale with Spray Lacquer to give her a fresh-from-the-ocean-like sheen.
Make Anything had great step-by-step instructions, and they followed their recipes for most of the process. Luckily, they had most of the materials already on hand—chicken wire from a previous project, glue, paint, newspaper, foam core, and flour. In total, they only spent about $25 on the project. It took about five weeks to complete, with five people working on the project for 1-4 hours each week.
Making Coralina was a fun team-building project that got both their Youth and Adult services departments working together, and the patron feedback has been great too! They plan to hang her up again next year for Oceans of Possibility.
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