Building a Cage . . .

Practical work! At last some work I could get messy with and use my hands rather than a mouse! I was given the task this weekend of constructing the live action twig cage our animation would take part in. Alec was to aquire the rock, Tom the small sign and camera. All of us agreed to bring in our objects for Monday ready for a test run of tommorows trip to London Zoo.

So I ventured up my local woods on Sunday collecting as many straight sticks and twigs as I could to build the cage with. It was slightly more difficult than expected because the recent weather had made most sticks completely dry, hollow, flimsy etc. I collected about 20 perfect sticks (size and width) and set about gluing them together.

The cage was to be built A4 paper size to allow for handling and the rock etc. I constructed the cage using string to tie the sticks together along with glue for extra stabilty. I was suprised at how fiddly and delicate working with sticks and string is, especially trying to get the whole thing to stay still and not collapse every 2 seconds! I eventually managed to stabilse the cage by adding a cardboard base which I later removed. It ended up taking me the whole day to finish . . . but it was worth it ;) .....