I&P: A Poignant Project: Making an Endangered Animal Out of Trash
I immediately knew I wanted to focus on an animal found only in Colombia, the second most biodiverse country in the world (in fact, per square kilometer, the country is the most biodiverse). Combined with my recent love of birdwatching, it was easy enough to decide to choose birds to focus on. However, there are currently 122 species of Colombian birds currently facing extinction, which is a lot more than I expected!
I narrowed my search down to hummingbirds due to a fond memory of mine in my uncle’s backyard in Colombia: every day, dozens of hummingbirds zipping around, feeding on the sugar water he’d put out in the morning.
I chose the Sapphire-belllied Hummingbird, Chrysuronia lilliae. It’s critically endangered and found only on the northern Atlantic coasts of Colombia. Its natural habitats are “subtropical or tropical mangrove forests and dry shrubland.” Due to high habitat loss, the estimated population size is 50 to 249 birds. Sapphire-bellied hummingbirds have a “maximum size of 8.9 to 9.4 cm and a weight of 4.3 grams.” Amazingly, their wings beat around 60 to 80 times per second.
Macaulay Library ML 204884771
I used this second image as my model.
After perusing the internet for the right hummingbird to pick, I sought out some images of other hummingbirds to get a better understanding of their bodies. I blocked out a shape in my sketchbook, broke it down into building blocks, and began the making process.
Feathers overlap from top to bottom, so I decided to start at the tail. I created the body out of a tube and overlapped some pieces to create the rounded look. It very much looks like a lobster tail!
I originally wanted to attach the wings last due to them possibly getting in the way or breaking, but I wasn’t confident enough to do the head just yet. I sketched out a rough wing shape out of cardboard and layered it with clear plastic.
I used aluminum from the Fanta can to attach it to the body. My intent was for the wings to be able to flap a little bit and give it a touch of movement, but the can was sturdier than I expected. Everything felt really fragile so I decided to leave it be. I was so focused on working, I forgot to take a picture of this step before adding the head.
Creating a round form out of cardboard had been easy for the tail because it was a small curve, but creating an almost-spherical head was the hardest challenge. I tried two methods: 1) tinfoil ball, and 2) beach ball-like cardboard parts to create the sphere. Unfortunately, neither were quite the right shape. In the end, I decided to use the tinfoil as a base and glue the beak on to use as an anchor of sorts. Then I cut out feather-like pieces of cardboard and layered them around beak, down the head and neck area. It worked like a charm! Again, no pictures here, but the final result is bellow.
The wings felt empty, so I added a detailed layer with a feathered edge. Additionally, I used tiny pieces of cardboard and a bead of hot glue to create the beady eyes, and the ring of orange plastic on Gatorade bottles to create the tiny feet and talons.
Et voilà!
Materials I ended up using:
- Cardboard tubes (body, feathers)
- Hot glue
- Gatorade bottle lid (feet)
- Tinfoil(inner body)
- Coca-Cola box (wings, feathers)
- Fanta can (wings)
- Red straw (beak)
- Clear grape container (wings)
Reflections
I started collecting things and then sat down to choose an animal. I wish I had worked the other way around, first choosing an animal and then collecting trash that I thought I could use to prototype a sculpture. This way, I would have paid careful attention to things that were green and blue to make my model look closer to the actual animal.
Learning that so many of these beautiful birds are critically endangered or extinct was distressing to say the least. I feel hopeless and like nothing I do can save these animals… but I suppose that was part of the project.