Cardboard Tube Totem Pole

This project uses many of the same skills as my mask-making work, but in this case, on a slightly smaller scale. The materials are very simple and the main part of the making requires only recycled tubes and some scrap pieces of cardboard.

It’s important when you make faces like this that they are made symmetrically, by folding the original piece of tube (or sheet of cardboard) in half, and leaving a small part of the centre of the mask connected so that it can be opened out, this is usually the end of the snout, nose, or beak. With my example I added a thin layer of tissue paper, pasted over the initial face-shapes in order to add some strength. You can see clearly in the photo below how I’ve then used a blunt, soft pencil to reintroduce the outlines.

Once this tissue layer was dry I added some textures. You can use corrugated card that’s bought, but it’s just as easy to tear up box card and use the textures inside like I have here. I always fold the corrugated pieces in half and cut two shapes at a time so that I know they are symmetrical and I have one for both side of the mask/face.

You can see here how I have used small pieces of tape to hold these corrugated textures in position while the glue dries, then they can just be peeled off.

You could easily just paint the eyes on, but I’ve made some simple 3D ones to add to the sculptural effect. I’ve just used a hole-punch to pop out some circles and either stuck them on, or cut around the circles to make a ‘doughnut’ shape.

For painting, like a lot of my work, I’ve built this up gradually. Here, I’ve washed some dark brown paint all over first and used a bit of gold to make some of the highlights stand out. Then I’ve chosen just three or four strong colours to paint on certain areas, making things symmetrical again by using the same design on either side. The patterns on totem poles are very often strong, simple, and bold, so it’s best to not worry too much about how carefully they are painted. Finally I’ve added some black outlines with a smaller brush and also used some white paint to highlight a few areas. The design, and colours are very much based on reference photos I’d grabbed from online.

All of these techniques are adaptable. If you tried this with younger children you could easily make the shapes less complex, even just adding a beak, a mouth, a snout etc one at a time. You don’t have to add the textures I have, you could just add the paper mache and then paint straight away. If the painting part is tricky for them, you could stick on coloured tissue for some of the design, or maybe use a black marker to add some of the outlines. As usual, the instructions I’ve provided here are for ideas and give you a blue-print, nothing is set in stone.

As is often the case with my work, the methods I’ve shared are transferable, you can easily use the same processes to make larger, or much more complex artwork, maybe with older students. You can change the scale, and obviously include all sorts of other materials and textures.