Foil Relief Sculptures

This relief sculpture was a great assignment for my tactile students. My students did a couple preliminary sketches in which straight lines went  from one side of a rectangle to another, and then the favorite composition was re-drawn on a piece of cardboard. Students cut notches on the cardboard where the lines met the edge, and then followed their marker lines with yarn from notch to notch.

Aluminum foil is then wrapped around the front of the board and taped to the back. In order to make the yarn lines really stand out, it is important to rub down lightly using the fingers, on either side of the yarn.

Sharpies were used to add color, without decreasing the reflective metallic look. It is always my goal for visually impaired and blind students to be able to paint or color independently, and having the raised lines as boundaries allowed them to do that.

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.