How to Mold a Rawhide Sculpture

Video Transcript

"Hello there. On behalf of Expert Village.com, my name is Candace Copeland. I would like to welcome you into my world of rawhide art, and I am going to give you a little demonstration because it's hard to believe that these big pieces come out with such detail. This is a piece of rawhide that has been soaked overnight. There is another process that it takes to stretch it, to mold it, to whatever. It takes, I would say, a full day and a half just to prep the hide. And then you get your mold. So for example, this is made out of like an old antique-y kind of thing. I'm always looking for things like this. It's kind of a plastic-y. I have worked one over wood, but wood is too porous. It's not a good mold. Bronze works, metal, this old-time plastic-y stuff. So basically, how about I leave that one right there. After this is extremely worked, then this goes down over it. Now, as much as you would think this is an easy, easy medium to work in, because you think, Oh well, they're just putting it over a mold, no big deal. It takes approximately two days just working over the mold. Sometimes I have to re-wet, I've got to stretch, I've got to form things. I've got to really keep it just at that right, perfect, solid, all-the-way-around, constantly pressing, waiting for it to dry. Going away, coming back every few minutes to get more detail, to get more detail. So as that starts to happen, it's fun because it's like developing a black and white photograph in your darkroom, and you start to see the face up here."