Finishing Kirstie's Freestanding ‘Crow’

Yesterday's blog left the scarecrow at the bare armature stage. Here's what happened next.

Step Five – Make the Body.

For this, I used a pillowcase. My method was slightly different to Kirstie’s in that I stapled the back of the opening to the scarecrow’s shoulders, put a bin sack inside to waterproof the newspaper stuffing, and filled up the pillowcase. The body hangs down in front of the vertical support, from the shoulders, and will be held in place by any clothes that are used to dress the scarecrow later. Meanwhile, the torso is very easy to stuff. It is surprising how much paper it takes to stuff a scarecrow!

Step Six - Attach the legs

These were made from a pair of old, thick tights. The first step was to stuff the legs of the tights firmly with newspapers contained in smaller plastic bags, up to the top of the legs. I put the scarecrow’s tights on when the pillowcase was about half full of newspaper. The tights give the ‘crow’ a nipped in waist. They are self supporting, but if you are worried about them staying on, you can pin them in place with safety pins.

More newspapers were added to the pillowcase, until the scarecrow was stuffed full up to the top. At this point, the bin sack and the front of the pillowcase were stapled to the shoulders to close up the body. If you want a fatter scarecrow, you can add more plastic bags containing newspaper to the tummy or hips, between the pillowcase and the tights, to provide additional padding.

If the legs stretch, as sometimes happens with tights, you can adjust their length at any point in the ‘build’ by squeezing the papers up from the toes, and tying a knot at the foot end, to shorten the legs. Remember, though, to leave enough length of ‘leg’ to form a foot. The same applies to the arms. You can see the knots where I have shortened by scarecrow's arms.

The arms were made from another pair of old tights, with the pants cut off. As before, the tights were stuffed with newspaper, contained in small plastic bags. It is good to adjust the size of the bag to the size of the limb that is being modelled: larger bags for the torso and thighs, smaller bags for the arms. Likewise, it is good to scrunch smaller balls of newspaper for the smaller limbs and larger balls for the torso. When they were full, the arms were stapled firmly to each shoulder using a staple gun. This is a job for a grown up!

Step Seven - The Face.

Kirstie used a pillowcase for her scarecrow but I used a smaller rectangular face bag, with a finished size of about 400 mm wide by 600 mm deep. These were run up quickly on a sewing machine from flesh coloured cotton, calico or hessian. The face should be decorated before it is put on the ‘crow’. As mine is just a demonstration, I have not decorated my scarecrow's face. Buttons are good, or a painted face looks great.  

A few points to bear in mind:

·      The plastic bag that is used to waterproof the face needs to be thicker and stronger than those used to contain the body stuffing as it takes quite a beating when the face is stuffed.

·      I put the plastic bag onto the face plate, stuffed it with small balls of newspaper and secured it with builder’s tape, and then I slipped the face bag on afterwards, as it is easier to stop the newspapers from falling out at the neck if you are only manipulating one layer. If you do this, make sure that you don’t over stuff the plastic bag, though newspaper is very forgiving and can be squeezed small so that the face bag can be pulled down.

·      If you are making a larger than life sized head, check that any clothes that do not open down the front will go over the head before you attach it to the armature.

Step Eight- Dress The Scarecrow

At this point, almost anything goes. Safety pins come in useful. Clothes can be made to look older by sewing or gluing on colourful patches cut from different materials. I can’t wait to see what people bring to tomorrow’s workshop to dress their ‘crows’.