A Natural Looking Bird Nest Part 2 ~ Armature
March 12, 2009
Now that you’ve collected your supplies (Part 1 of the Bird’s Nest) from outside, around the house, the craft store, and/or the dollar store, you’re ready to start your bird’s nest. I’ll explain how I make an armature for my bird’s nest in this post.
The first step is to take the bark covered floral wire and make a spiral. When the spiral is the desired size, you’ll clip the end. Remember that a bird nest is concave. You can test the size of the nest by pushing the wire into a bowl shape.
Your going to want to complete your spiral by wrapping the end of the wire around the previous level in your spiral. Although it’s a little fuzzy in this photo, you want to tuck that end of the wire around the bark covered wire. You don’t want anything poking out.
When you’ve tucked in the end, you can push the center of the spiral out to form a bowl shape.
The next step is to put some vertical supports into your armature. First you cut a piece of twine or string. I haven’t tried rafia, but it might work. I cut about a yard. Secure the twine to the nest with a knot.
Now go down a level and secure the string with a single tie. Repeat the single tie on each level until you get to the bottom of the nest.
When you get to the bottom, bring the string back up securing it with a single tie at each level. You’ll be creating a “V” or zigzag pattern with the twine.
If you run out of twine before you finished, make a knot with the end of the previous piece, cut another piece, secure it and keep making your pattern.
When you’ve finished adding vertical support with the twine, the armature for your nest will look something like the armature in the photo above. Don’t worry about making everything perfect. The pieces of the armature will be indistinguishable from the rest of the nest by the time you are done.
Next time, you’ll be pulling out your twigs, wool, rafia and moss. We’ll be finishing up our natural looking nest.
Here’s a link to the other pieces of this tutorial.
March 12, 2009 at 11:52 pm
[...] A Natural Looking Bird Nest Part 2 ~ Armature « Perpetualplum’s Weblog Says: March 12, 2009 at 11:51 pm [...]
March 13, 2009 at 11:54 pm
[...] of moss around our area, so I added a bit of moss into my nest. Picking up where we left off in Part 2, with a completed armature, we’re going to start to fill in our nest. Cut some stems, twigs [...]
March 16, 2009 at 11:51 pm
[...] A Natural Looking Birds Nest, Part 1 Materials, Part 2 Armature, Part 3 Finishing Up Posted by perpetualplum Filed in 1 Tagged: bird, blog, decoration, easter, [...]
March 22, 2009 at 9:21 pm
[...] to display fabric bird sculptures she makes. Part 1, Materials for a Natural-Looking Bird Nest Part 2, Armature Part 3, Finishing [...]
April 22, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I have been trying for years now to find out how to make a wire armature of a crow that will stand on it’s two feet. Please help….book? dvd? thanks rmosley
April 22, 2009 at 8:58 pm
The only serious doll book I own, Anatomy of a Doll by Susanna Oroyan, only describes how to make human figures. I usually make my birds to stand on a nest or branch; however, I did finish a spun cotton robin that will stand on his own two feet. I think I only took photos of him with his tail down, but his wire legs are strong enough and his body light enough that he could stand on his own. I didn’t photograph his armature. Maybe if I get a moment, I’ll make another armature and post it. I can tell you that I made the armature with floral wire. His body was a lighter weight wire and his feet were made by twisting 4 pieces of wire together. He has 3 front claws and one back claw. This seems to be a sturdy arrangement.