Four Foot All American Hot Dog

I’ve been wanting to supersize a hot dog sculpture idea that I had as an art student. I bought an American flag, swim noodles and a boogie board in preparation for making the sculpture. Then, as it happened I left the swim noodles at home. I was motivated to work on the piece anyway so reused random pieces of recycled foam that I had in my studio instead. I added poofs of foam filling too and attached them by wrapping the piece with thread around and around. Then I wrapped the hotdog with the flag and sewed it in place. I sewed the ends to look like actual hot dogs in their casings, by making nips and tucks is the flag! The bun was created from the boogie board cut in half lengthwise. I had to add some additional foam to the length of the boogie board to match the size of the hot dog. I studied the look of an actual hotdog bun. I added a hinged back piece from foam core board so that it would be partially opened around the hotdog. Then I “upholstered” the whole bun with an old blanket from home. The blanket had just the right color and texture for a hot dog bun. I painted the top and bottom to look authentic. Then I made two matching zigzags of yellow felt. I stuffed them and sealed the edges to resemble a squiggle of mustard. Then the last step was creating pickle chips out of foam core board. Now I need to work on a stand to hold the hotdog upright. The hotdog is leaning against the wall on a stand in the corner of my studio for now.