https://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/a-woodent-monster-ant • Posted by Anni
This artwork was part of my qualification test for my studies of Arts & Design as a part of my education as elementary school teacher. On the follwing pictures you can see different steps of the Monster-Ant-Creation. The pics are not sorted chronological. How much you want to carve out the details is on your own choice. My experience is that the viewers don´t get so close that they could see details. They stay in distance...
This artwork was part of my qualification test for my studies of Arts & Design as a part of my education as elementary school teacher. On the follwing pictures you can see different steps of the Monster-Ant-Creation. The pics are not sorted chronological. How much you want to carve out the details is on your own choice. My experience is that the viewers don´t get so close that they could see details. They stay in distance...
First you have to carve the piece of wood so that it looks like an ant. Therefore you have to carve its body into 3 pieces. Consider that the abdomen is the biggest fraction. On the abdomen you can also adumbrate the wings.
On the head you have to carve two excrescences for the eyes and to carve out the mouthpart. In this case the bigger the better because the mouthpart characterizes the animal a lot.
After that you have to drill small holes in the body in which you can stick the spits. Therefore 14 holes are needed: 2 in the head for the antennas and 6 (3x2) on each side of the middle body part for the legs. Though an insect has only 6 legs, I realized that the legs life longer when you prepare each of 2 spits. So you need to drill 2 holes for each leg. After drilling you can stick the spits into the holes. If you stick them hard, you don´t need to glue them. The spits need to be softly broken on several spots as you can see on the picture.
After braking the spits you need to bind the two spits of each leg together at the braking points with wire. As you can see on the picture you can divide the spits at the end of the legs. So it looks more like original antfeet.
To summarize it up: The big mouth gives an alarming look. The ant looks dangerous now.
The long and thin legs give a filigree look. The effect of danger and delicateness in combination...
...makes it look perfect. =)