Salt Dough: Salty Pumpkin Creature

Salt Dough Pumpkin Creature~formed over a stainless steel bowl bottom

• 1 Cup each salt and all purpose flour mix thoroughly
  
• Add water starting with 2 tablespoons; add until the dough isn't sticky
• Spray cooking oil to coat the outside of a shallow round bottom 5.5 inch stainless steel bowl
• Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thick
• Place over the bowl
• Press in lightly facial features made with left over dough
  
• Make small holes half inch up from edges (for attachment wires)
  
• On a cookie sheet, for air circulation, lift creature bowl a bit using an aluminum pie tin under the edge. Bake creature in preheated oven 150ºF for about 3 hours. Check regularly.
  
• Carefully remove creature from bowl Using Oven Mitts, lifting very slightly with small round tipped buttering knife along edges until it slides off.
  
• Cool completely overnight. There may be some shrinkage, cracks in the sides depending on the amount of water used. Varied thicknesses of the sculpture have different drying times. Inside the creature, if your fingernail can dent the dough, then it isn't completely dry.

  

  Inside creature's face

  
  
• Seal inside and out of creature when it is completely dry
• Attach to a piece of wood board using wires and brass finishing tacks
• Paint and decorate  

Before Face

The attachment wires should be pliable enough to hold the creature to a wood board using wide headed brass finishing tacks. Note the rough texture where I carved the mouth smaller. The eyebrows are also carved, from awning size to a less protruding feature. The Salty Pumpkin creature is done in a primitive style, roughed in features, and no sanding to smooth. The salt dough can be carved using carving tools when it is dry. The rough lines add a Frankenstein creature look to the piece.

After Face

I used acrylic paint to paint the creature and the backing board. The backing board is painted a very dark aubergine with a brownish red tint.

Cheese cloth is colored using the same paint by adding a bit of water to soak the cheese cloth. Wring out the excess water, and then apply around the creature to hide the attachment tacks and wires. The cheese cloth is pulled over the edge of the board in a couple of places to give it a spider web feel. Faux autumn leaves, berries, real twigs with lichen, real tiny milkweek pods, real wild grape vine tendrils, and a small plastic evergreen piece are hot glued to the board. Glitter is added to the twigs and creature's face. I also left a few of the hot glue strings as spider silks.