Cardboard Sculptures

In a time when Art funding in many schools can be hard to come by, teachers need to get creative and resourceful. This project was a win-win situation situation for me since I was trying to figure out what to do with all the cardboard boxes left over from Christmas, and some of my students wanted to make large pieces.

 I broke the boxes down, and gave students the task of taking the flat pieces of cardboard and making a sculpture that is  interesting to view from every angle: front, back, left, right, and above. They could make it as big or small as they wanted and could make it representational or non-objective. We had begun our week by discussing the term "sculpture in the round" (as opposed to "relief sculpture") and varying degrees of flatness. They had each taken a flat piece of foil and manipulated it into a 3D form as a warm- up exercise.

Then students got busy picking up pieces of cardboard and trying to figure out ways to make it attach to other pieces. They made slits for pieces to slide together at right angles, used colored tape, and hot glue to make their pieces as well constructed as possible.

Pieces of cardboard were painted with acrylics or with spray paint before (or after) assembling them permanently. And when needed, new pieces were cut, painted and attached.

Some added pattern to the surface using regular or metallic markers. These pieces took up a lot of surface space in our room, but luckily only 14 students were given the assignment. There were a few set backs, like the student, who made a chair from flat pieces of styrofoam, and found the foam melted when sprayed with gold paint. We chalked it up to part of the learning process and started again with cardboard. In the end they were so pleased with the results.

Aluminum Foil Sculptures

This project was part of a lesson about sculpture in the round. The Family and Consumer Science teacher had covered the bulletin board with aluminum foil to look like a cookie sheet, and then she had students make paper and foam cookies to cover it. When it was my turn to do the bulletin board, I took down the foil, and gave a piece to each student. We felt how flat it was and talked about the difference between two dimensional and three dimensional art. Then they were given the task to make a 3D sculpture from the 2D foil. Here are the results.

 The horse was the only piece that required a little pipe cleaner armature to cover. If they were going to make bigger pieces, I'm sure we'd use wire structure to start. Mostly, this is an instant gratification type of lesson and one I have already referred back to several times to help them remember my students difference between 2D and 3D art.