Nov 16, 2010

Giacometti Inspired Sculptures

I love the elongated sculptures of Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) and we recently had some work from the Guggenheim collection visit our tiny town, including this work (see left) by Giacometti ('City Square', bronze, 1948).

When I began talking to my grade 4 students about this artist a few of them recognised his 'Walking Man' sculpture from the Guinness Book of World Records. This sculpture recently became the highest selling sculpture of all time, which made the kids even more interested to learn about the artist.
The students created these Giacometti inspired sculptures using wire, cardboard, paper mache and paint. They were very proud of how they turned out.


Sculptures drying in the sun. Like tiny school children playing!

When working with 10 year old boys, one must expect the 'Tough Guy Giacometti' and 
'Ninja Giacometti'....
This one's got some attitude on it : )

12 comments:

  1. Very nice! What type of wire did you use and how did you have the kids attatch the wire to the base? Thanks!

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  2. These are wonderful! I've done a simplified version with pipe cleaners and aluminum foil. But these really have the look of Giacometti. what type of paint did you use?
    Thanks for the great post!

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  3. I love how summer-like it is outside for you. We just got our first snow fall. I will send you a picture so you can show you kids what it looks like here:) These are great! Looks like a mess, I love it:)

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  4. These really turned out well. I love the way most of the kids got a lot of movement in their figures:)

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  5. Hi all. Thanks for the comments! The wire is a soft easily bendable wire that I ordered through a school supplier. It's so soft the kids can cut it with scissors, yet strong. Attached to base with staples and masking tape. The paint is just black acrylic with some metallic bronze dry-brushed over it.
    Also Nichole - 32 degrees and not even summer yet! (That's 90 degrees F for you). At least everything we do in art is dry within 5 minutes :)

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  6. I'm going to do this with two pipe cleaners...glue...news paper...and acrylic paint!!! I just made the mock up/teacher example. Probably will be after Christmas break before I can get to it...but I'm excited!!!! Thanks for the inspiration.

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  7. I've always loved Giacometti, these are superb!

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  8. Awesome! I love this artist and may even do this with High School.

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  9. Hi! I would love to know what type of paper mache did you use? I think I see white paper towels in the photo mixed with glue/water. Thanks so much!

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    1. Hi Anon - white paper towels would work fine, we used cheap toilet paper (which the kids thought was hilarious).

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  10. love this! what a great idea. do you have step by step instructions... sorry not the creative type.
    thank you for sharing.

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  11. Hi, what is the base made out of please? Thanks and awesome idea for my children at school!

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