I got a Facebook message one day from a friend asking if I could do anything with these cow skulls. 

I thought it was a bit odd until the girls at work showed me the painted cow skulls on Pinterest.   As creative as I am, the only painting I am good at is painting my walls or furniture.  But I do seem to have a knack for mixed media, which turned out great on this cow skull. It is now fashionable to have a decorative skull in your BOHO style home.

How to decorate a cow skull using mixed media

I had to do some research (yes I googled it) on how to prepare these cow skulls and was really surprised that I was unable to find much.  This was how I prepared mine.  From what my friend told me the cow had died years ago so the skull has been dried by the sun. If this is not your cup of tea working with a real cow skull, resin skulls are available. 

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Cleaning up the skull

To start remove all the loose insides of the skull. I used some pliers to pull all the cavities out, they were very brittle and pulled out easy enough. It was no surprise to find the skull was full of spiders and an ant nest. To remove these and clean the skull. I fill the bath full of water and added some bleach and soaked the skull for a few hours to kill all the creatures living inside.  Make sure you turn the skull upside down so the bleach can kill the ants hiding in the air pockets.  I had a few that survived this process. You will need to dry the skull outside in the sun for a few days.

I glued the nasal bones to the skull using epoxy glue and secured the teeth into the skull using super glue.  

Add texture to the skull

I painted the skull white using white gesso so the skull looked more presentable and to not creep me out so much.  To add texture to the skull I used an offcut of faux snakeskin leather and glued it to the skull using multi-purpose glue. Then added more textures using stencils and texture paste. All stencils used in this project were made using a Cricut vinyl cutter and mylar film. Lay the stencils randomly over the skull then using a spatula knife add some texture paste.

This step does not need to be done perfectly but in my opinion the more imperfections the better the outcome.  While the paste is still soft you can flatten the peaks in the texture paste using your finger.

To frame the leather I used some dried peas which were glued using tacky glue to the edges of the leather to hide the seam. This does not look very good now but the end results are stunning.

Adding the design to the leather

I wanted this project to be one of a kind so I added a vinyl design to the leather.  I had used this technique on my Halloween wine bottles and the results were stunning so I was hoping for a similar result. The design was created in the Cricut design space.  This is not as hard as you think.  I gathered free images from websites like Pixabay and clipart and added them to design space as SVG files. You keep moving them around until you are happy with the design.

This may seem daunting to some, but to give you an idea of how simple it is. I only had pictures of three cows, some were made smaller some were rotated.  The graphic is just duplicated using the duplicate button in design space and for some, I changed the size.  I created a barn scene for the front and a farmhouse scene for the background. The design was cut out onto oracle 651 permanent vinyl.

The image was then transferred to the transfer film and added to the leather.  In hindsight, I would transfer the image to the leather first before glueing it to the skull.  The uneven surface did make it a bit difficult to transfer the image.  Using a scraper rub the design until it transfers onto the leather then remove the transfer tape.

Adding Embellishments to the cow skull

You can add almost anything to the skull, I like to use items I have laying around at home and in my shed.  Being a crafty person I have ordered charms for other projects over the years which became handy for this project. If you have a Cricut or a silhouette cameo machine you can make a lot of the embellishments.  To see how this mixed media canvas post will help.

Glue the embellishments onto the skull.  Use hot glue for the heavier items and glue similar to E6000 for the rest.  I used scraps of burlap fabric and added charms on top to create layers. You can use old keys, studs or broken jewellery to do this.

On close inspection, you will see I used lots of common items. I cut pieces of corrugated cardboard and glue a button on top. The nose was decorated using studs from my workshop and a thumbtack was put on top.  Self-adhesive rhinestones leftover from the DIY wedding sneakers I made for my daughter were added to the sides.

Try and add lots of different shapes and textures. The more layers the better it will look.

The eye sockets still looked too creepy for my liking. To soften the look I added some burlap fabric and thumbtacks with the spikes cut off to the inside.  Try and cover all the areas with some embellishments.

I had some epoxy resin feathers I made a while back. These were heated up with a hairdryer to soften them, then I moulded them to the shape of the skull.

Paint the cow skull

Once you are happy with the embellishment paint everything using black Gesso.

To speed up the drying time of the gesso you can use a hairdryer. Make sure you paint all the nooks and crannies so no white is showing.

Adding the bronze wax paste

This is where the magic happens in my opinion. Dip your finger into the bronze wax paste and run it over the surface of the embellishments.  The Don’t fill in all the nooks and crannies or the effect will be lost.

This is an up-close look at how the embellishments look as you apply the bronze wax paste.  When applying the wax to the vinyl decal be more generous with the bronze wax.  Making sure the bronze wax covers the whole vinyl decal to make it pop off the leather.

It was at this stage that I realised that I wanted to make some horns to finish off the cow skull.

Looking for more mixed media ideas check out Favecrafts and Diyideacentre both are a great source for a future DIY project. 

Making the horns

My first attempt at the horns was a total disaster. A foil mould was taken from an old cow horn. I used some plaster to fill up the moulds, which seemed to work at first but cracked and broke the next day.

For my second attempt, I used tin foil, paper towel and polymorph. To start, roll some tin foil into the size you want your horn to be.  Make sure you roll or crush it tight, this will help when you want to shape the horn.  The foil will hold the bend in the horn.  Next, using tissue paper, or newspaper start adding layers to the tin foil to get a thicker shape taping it as you go along.  Then bend the horn to the shape you want and add a final layer of tape.

Polymorph looks like small plastic beads, which soften when heated.  Boil the kettle and add some beads to the boiling water.  The beads will become clear and mould-able.  Start at the top and mould the polymorph around the shape, using a wet hand to smooth over the surface. Once the polymorph cools down it will become a solid plastic-like finish.  You can keep heating it with a heat gun for further moulding just be careful because it will become very hot. (Polymorph is reusable)

Attaching the horns

Using some long nose pliers I pulled out some of the tin foil to make a hole for the wooden dowel. The dowel was inserted into the hole which was then filled up with polymorph.

Decorate the horns in the same way as you did the skull with the texture paste, charms, peas and embellishments.

Paint the horns with the black gesso and rub with the bronze wax paste in the same way as above.

I used a cone drill bit to drill the hole in the cow skull to fit the horns.  I used this because I wanted to drill the hole small bits at a time, testing the fit until it fits snugly into the cow skull.

To secure the horns in place, I used the polymorph again.

To make sure the horns were not going to move at all, I added more polymorph to the outside making sure to push it firmly into the cow skull. Paint it with gesso to hide the white. The horns were by no means perfect in shape or size but they better than nothing.  And that was the cow skull complete. 

Up close view of the farm scene.

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