Dog Relief Sculpture, Wall Art

DisneyPlus has show, Critter Fixers: Country Vets, which is filmed in Georgia not far from The Academy for the Blind. In fact, we had some students do some work-based-learning with them on a regular basis last school year, culminating in a school assembly Q&A session with the Critter Fixers stars, Dr. Hodges and Dr. Ferguson. Students were able to walk to different stations on campus, petting various animals and listening to their heartbeat through a stethoscope. It was a great day and we all looked forward to seeing the episode when it came out.

Months later, the show's producer came back and, during a tour of the school, stopped by the Art room and mentioned how nice it would be to have a piece of student artwork on a wall of Critter Fixers. Immediately, the parent mentor, who was giving the tour, mentioned Kirby, as a subject. Kirby is the school's emotional support dog. Minutes after they left, I started looking for pictures of the black Labrador Retriever. Students helped me pick a couple of my sketches, and then they traced the projections onto a large piece of paper to use as patterns.  I used the patterns to cut out layers of cardboard, glued together to make a thick structure. 

Two Middle School students made more rubbings with oil pastels on black paper, based on the past assignment, which they decoupaged onto the structures.  To make the relief structures into something that could be hung on the wall, I had made two holes through two layers of cardboard to thread wire through before adding a top layer of the body.

Hooray for May Day!

May 1st is May Day is International Workers Day to celebrate rights of laborers, but it is also an a spring celebration dating back at least four hundred years, complete with music and May Poles. The May basket tradition that I remember as a child, is one in which a paper basket is made, filled with treats and/ or flowers, and then left anonymously on someone's door.  My students spent last week making paper flowers for May baskets.

One day they made lilies, which required them to trace a circle inside a circle and divide it into 8 sections like pizza slices. A dot in the center of each section on the outer ring would be the point of each petal and then where the straight line (slice edge) intersected with the smaller circle would be where the petal ended. Templates were drawn and cut. One of the petals was removed completely down to the center point of the circle (an entire pizza slice removed.)  The template allowed students to trace and cut several more matching lilies. Dots were drawn towards the center of one side, then the flower was flipped and the petals were curled with a pencil.  A cone is made with the dots on the inside, and glue used for overlapping petals.  A pipe cleaner with a little roll on the top is placed on the center just before gluing.

For hyacinth, half a sheet of construction paper (lengthwise), gets folded up 1/2-3/4" before cutting slits down to the fold.  Each slit (about 1/3" apart) is curled. Some of my students used a toothpick for a nice tight curl. We ran a bead of glue on the edge and used that to wrap down the stem.  Stems were made from green paper rolled tightly. I started cutting the paper in half diagonally and rolling from the right angle corner towards the longest side of the triangle, and then twisting to tighten before gluing the last little flap in place.  We even taped our shortened lily pipe cleaners to the top of the paper stems because they looked better and were easier to bundle or stand in a vase. Basically 2 half sheets of paper and a few drops of glue will get you a beautiful hyacinth!

Tulips were easier than I thought they would be and ended up looking almost real!  To make, we cut 4 rectangles of the same color, each 2 inches wide and 5 or 6 inches long.  The center was pinched like a bow tie and then twisted twice and folded back on itself.  We placed our thumbs in the center to pull the tissue around like a little spoon and then pinched the bottom before gluing each petal to the stem. First two are across from each other (like a clam top and bottom) and then the next two filled in the sides.  These look best with long thing green leaves glued to the stem.

Day four, we made carnation or chrysanthemum type flowers with tissue paper. See last year's Cinco de Mayo decorations for instructions.

May baskets are made by forming a cone of paper and stapling and gluing before trimming the pointy edges on top. We stapled ribbon to hang on a door, and lined each cone basket with a larger piece of tissue paper before placing 5 or 6 flowers in each.  My students are not as stealthy as I'd hoped but they still had fun pretending no one saw them as they knocked on the doors of our administrators and scurrying away.  And they have enough left over for a Mother's Day surprise.  Happy May Day!

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.