Quilled Elephant Head

Materials

Grey 3mm wide quilling strips
White 3mm wide quilling strips

Tools

PVA glue in a fine nozzle dispenser
Fine point tweezers
Reverse action tweezers
Cuticle scissors
Black pen

Head – 3 strips
Chest – 6 strips
Ear – 4 strips
Trunk – 2 thirds of a strip, decreasing lengths from that

Tusk – 1 quarter strip, tight rolled, small length of grey to cover base
Jaw – 1 sixteenth strip
Eye - 1 sixteenth strip

Roll the head, chest and ear sections and glue as loose coils. The ear should be slightly larger than the head section. Use reverse action tweezers to arrange and glue the coils against one side of the roll (see photos, they help make more sense!), glue on back to hold in place and let dry.

Once dry, carefully shape each part as shown in photo. Glue the tip of the chest to the side of the head, and the ear on top of the junction between them. The two bottom parts should support the ear.

Trim some strips to the lengths required for the trunk. Make a lot more lengths than you think you'll need, as you'll need to decide by eye what sizes suit the size of the head you've made.

Roll the trunk pieces into loose coils. Make the smallest two equivalently sized.

You will need more coils than I've shown here - approx 10 parts minimum, plus the two smallest ones for the trunk tip.

Using reverse action tweezers, squash the coils flat, keep flat by clamping between the tweezers, and cover the backs with glue. Let the glue dry – this’ll hold the coils in this flattened position.

Glue the trunk pieces together in order of size, angling them in a gentle upward curve. Take the smallest two pieces and pinch into teardrop shapes. Glue to the end of the trunk. Glue trunk to the lower edge of the point of the head.

Roll the white length into a tight roll. Push into a pointed shape and fill the inside with glue. This will make it strong and solid. Let it dry, and wrap a short length of grey around the top of the tusk, so it sticks out beyond the wide end of the tusk. Coat the inside of this grey extension with glue, and press against the lower side of the head to attach. Trim any excess length of strip.

Roll a short length of grey into a loose coil, and pinch into a teardrop shape. Glue the wide edge of the teardrop to the underside of the head for the jaw.

Roll a tight white roll, and use a pen to draw on an eye. Slide into the coils of the head and glue in place.

Tweak the shape of the various parts now until you're happy they all sit well together. And that's it!