Wednesday, October 1, 2025
Plaster Cast Relief Sculptures
Plaster Word Art
Dick Blick offers a Topographical Typograhy lesson that I was happy to try out for our relief sculpture unit. My students who are Braille readers, don't spend much time thinking about how fonts each have their own vibe. But even blind kids can grasp the idea that text for a five year old birthday card, requires playful letters whereas, a wedding announcement might ask for elegant lettering. Now what that means can be different, but rounded letters are less serious than sharp edged letters. Calligraphic texts with the slanted letters and varied weight of line harkens to romance or tradition. So students began this assignment by picking a word and a style for their type.
My students wrote and transfered their best idea to a piece of mat board using pencil, marker, or Wiki Sticks depending on their vision. Then they taped 1/2 strips of white posterboard on it's edge to follow their lines. The following day, a lot of the tape had curled up so I started hot gluing it for them the day they tacked it down with fewer pieces of tape.
Then they took pieces of plaster cloth and dipped it in a bowl of water for just a second or two, smoothed out with a couple of fingers in the air to fill in some of the holes in the guaze-y fabric. Then draped it over the raised lines and smoothed it down.Some students stuck to an initial or two.
A couple Braille readers opted to make just one initial or a simple picture, since they don't read print at all. I was okay with that since a picture is worth a thousand words. Ultimately we were able to do 15 small projects (5" X 8" to 8" X 10" ) with a 5" wide X 3 yard strip plaster fabric. Some students used watercolor pencils and some used spray paint to finish up the surface, but I liked the white, unfinished surface. It's a fun project that can be done somewhere between 15 minutes and 3 hours depending on how elaborate you want to get.
Foil Paper and Oil Pastel Project
Tuesday, September 9, 2025
Repoussé project
Then students painted the entire surface with black paint, whether they'd colored the surface or not. It's important to get into the cracks so the lines show up on the final product.
Yarn Collage Images
Little Kids Garden Painting
Wesleyan Collage Workshop
The Wesleyan College Leadership Lab has started a series Called Level Up, where community members can take part in Learning Experiences with poet Laureates and experts on AI. The first in the series was a collage workshop presented by none other than Dennis Applebee, the Art Department Chair, and my hubby. He walked participants through the history of collage and his process before turning us lose with books, art paper, X-Acto knives, and archival glue sticks. The number one problem students make? Not putting enough glue and having the edges curl up. He uses a piece of copy paper to cover the freshly glued collage piece and rubs it pretty hard in every direction with a flat tool to make sure the glue goes into the fibers of both pieces of paper, with rubbing the image or snagging the surfaces. A lot of people left with some really nice pieces.