Day 22: Sculpture

This class has been working on a fascinating and whimsical project.  With the random materials of wood, metal wired hangers, panty hoses, power drills, staple gun and acrylic paint the students have been creating beautiful sculptures.  By drilling holes into the block of wood, students were able to secure the metal wire into the wood and then create the 'skeleton' of the sculpture.  The students were instructed to make two sculptures that depicted a dance or a story. The first stage of this project took one whole class (roughly 80 minutes)! I thought it was great that the students had to work with power tools--good for hands on experiences!

The next class the students had to tightly cover their two sculptures with panty hoses.  This step was very important because it showed the true shape of the sculptures. I would walk around to each student and ask them to show me the dance or the story of their sculptures.  Most sculptures were very compatible meanwhile other students had to re-construct the form of their wiring to make the two sculptures more cohesive with each other. After approved, the students then coated their sculptures with a thick acrylic/glue medium. This process was pretty messed and took an entire class session as well.

The next class the students were instructed to choose an acrylic base color to paint their sculptures.  The students were directed that they had to paint the pieces in a gradient technique.  The darkest shade of their chosen color would be at the bottom and the lightest tint would be at the very top of the sculptures.  The base color (red, blue, green, purple, etc.) would be painted on the middle of the pieces.  The students seemed to have a hard time with this because the paint would dry before the could blend the colors or they would have too much paint on their brushes.  I went around to the students and instructed that it is easier to start with the true base color and then slowly add in white for the tint blending and to solely focus on the white before even thinking about shading with black.  After a while the students got the hang out of it and surprisingly the painting portion of this project is taking the longest.  Students have been painting for the past two class sessions and they are still in the process of painting the sculptures.

I spoke with the students about this project regarding if they liked it or not.  I was very happy to hear that the students were really enjoying the project and were eager to start it.  The students are learning through trial and error that blending is a difficult technique to execute especially while painting an abstract and warped sculpture.  I over heard the students and they think it would be "really cool" if we could display the sculptures as a unit by attaching the weird-looking projects onto a wall. (I think we may just have to do that!)