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Hi everyone... my daughter is doing a project on grey whales and we decided to paper mache one. We used chicken wire to make the form and the recipe I used was 2 parts glue/1 part water. Everything was going great. We put 2 layers on the form. Now we just got done painting the whale w/tempera paint. UUGGHH... there are cracks all over the whale - almost like the paint is splitting. Please help... project is due in a couple of days - I can use any advice from the pros.... Thanks in advance! 
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How frustrating for you! Maybe the papier mache wasn't fully dried out? As a quick fix, leave an electric fan blowing on it overnight. Then rub it down lightly with sandpaper and paint again, maybe with acrylic paint this time - it's not so watery.
Anyone else got any suggestions?
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Thanks Jackie... since we didn't have a lot of extra time to complete this project, we just painted a couple of coats (being sure to thoroughly dry in between coats) and that seemed to help. The gray whale looked great for our very first paper mache project... unfortunately, her classmates played with it and it got smashed 
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