The paradise flycatcher has always amazed and fascinated me and its always a joy to spot this bird swooping down to catch an insect. Its iconic tail makes it a truly unique bird.
Initially this bird was supposed to me made just out of newspaper and thread, as the approach to it was to be minimalistic about external materials other than paper e.g.. glue and tape. At first, I was reluctant to using only newspaper and thread as materials and doubted whether the final sculpture would even make it. I was wrong, as I quickly learned how much could be made just by using this technique. If more needs to be added, just add newspaper and roll some more thread around it. If some needs to be removed, well, just cut it with a blade. I realised this way of sculpting ,unlike paper mache and clay modelling, is quick, dry, and can be of any size.
It was only once the basic model was made did I realise I can take this further in aesthetics if I used glue some sort of paper on top of it. I used regular print paper and book cover paper to get the orange and white look of the bird. I cut out several pieces of paper and cut out a petal shape that will mimic the look of its feathers and plumage. Its very easy to just place them where you wanted and it would get stuck right there with glue. Alter- nating which way i would place it , and keep going up layer by layer, it really mimicked the pattern of a plumage.
I did the tail by just taking a strip of brown paper and cutting stripes less than half the way of the strip horizontally. I added the tip of the paper next to end of the last feathers of the bird, finally creating the iconic tail of the bird.
This whole process showed me how simple it is to make a simple sculpture using just paper, thread and some glue. I was shocked how close you can get to replicating a certain texture and colour. Paper really does look beautiful, its a material that regularly is blatant about its looks, from chart paper, to packaging material. By taking their advantage, by finding its beauty and remaking its purpose, one can easily make, model, and finish a sculpture.
