Gordon figures out use for old papers

For some it's tomorrow's fish and chip paper, while others choose to line their pets cages with it. But one Express & Star reader has a rather more creative use for his old copies.

Gordon Turner, who is chairman of Walsall Society of Artists, has around a dozen models that he has made out of his favourite newspaper.

From a lifelike tiger to castles and pirates, Gordon's home in Bell Lane, Walsall, is filled with models he has cleverly made from papier mache.

"I started making models 25 years ago when my wife spotted a pottery horse in a shop window when we were on holiday in Folkestone. It cost £298 and so I told her I would make one for her," says the 80-year-old former teacher.

"That night I went to the shop with my sketch pad and looked through the window, tracing the outline of the horse."

Gordon made a structure from aluminium sculptors wire, and plaited it to create legs, a neck and a tail.

"To make muscles I roll a bit of paper lengthways, to add bulk I screw it up into balls and to stick it all together I use long strips of paper," he says.

"I bind it with adhesive and then use small postage stamp sizes to finish it off. To add detail to faces I take very small bits of newspaper, mix them with paste in a saucepan and boil it up to make a porridge-like consistency.

"Once that is squeezed out it is like putty and is great for eyes, noses and hands."

To add the finishing touches Gordon uses kitchen roll with a pattern on it, which is great for making clothes look like they are made out of material. On February 11, Gordon will be talking about his models and how to make ships in bottles at a meeting of the Walsall Society of Artists.

"I became interested in art when I was a child and I could use a pencil before I could say what it was called," he says.

"I grew up in Walsall and went to Palfrey Junior School. I noticed that while the other children could just draw basic stick-man type pictures I was able to create something that looked like a person. Gordon says it was when he was training in Leeds to be a teacher that he first tried using papier mache to make models.

"One of my subjects at college was art and I made a number of items out of papier mache including a crouching lion, a galloping horse and a black cat with an arched back," says the father-of-three who has three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. "They were different from anything that anyone had done but then I didn't do anything again until I made the horse for my wife 25 years ago."

Gordon's wife Doreen says that after her husband has finished a model he loses interest in it. "Of course, my favourite one is the horse he made for me 25 years ago – I prefer it to the one I saw in the shop window," she said. Gordon, who has been a teacher at Little London School in Willenhall and Beechdale Primary says his favourite model is the one of a pirate holding a ship in a bottle. I was once asked if I would make models for the American market.

"However, I said 'no thank you'. Why turn a wonderful hobby that I enjoy into a job with targets and demands."

* Anyone interested in attending Gordon's talk on February 11 at St Martin's Church Hall, Sutton Road in Walsall, can contact the Walsall Society of Artists on 01922 636513.