Sep 13, 2011

Abstract Sculptures

Two views of a student sculpture titled 'Anger'.
These sculptures were recently created by my grade 7s and I'm pretty impressed with them. I find teaching concepts of abstract art to kids quite difficult as it seems to take them a while to get it. We began by discussing how different colours can represent different feelings and then moved onto how one could create a certain feeling using shapes. We also looked at pictures of some of Alexander Calder's stabiles before the students began planning their own sculptures. 

Each one of these sculptures is made from 2D shapes cut from cardboard and slotted together using a few small cuts and a lot of glue. They were painted in a colour which would help convey the chosen emotion and dry-brushed with metallic paint to finish.
 
'Loneliness' and 'Excitement'
'Happiness'
'Excitement'

'Sadness'
'Sadness'

'Sadness' 
'Anger'
'Excitement'
'Confusion'
'Calm' and 'Confusion'
'Confusion'
'Confusion'
 
'Happiness' and 'Confusion'
'Calm'


9 comments:

  1. Those are great! I just love em! Middle school is one of my favorite ages and what a great project this is for them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. These are terrific - I love how well-thought out they are to express the emotions.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love all of these. I am in the midst of planning a similar lesson for my 4th and 5th graders!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I really enjoyed this lesson - I sometimes underestimate just how much the older students can do. Thanks for your comments guys :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. these are amazing... I love them. You are so great with teaching sculpture to your students! I was hoping to work more with 3D materials with my students this year (we were having a huge set of shelves built in my classroom so I would have a place to put them) but my move out of my classroom has put some serious limitations on that :(
    Hope to try this someday!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks Katie - I enjoy looking at your sculpture work too (and am enjoying following you on Pinterest!)

    ReplyDelete
  7. This would be a great extension to the analog drawings we do in high school. It would also be a good way to incorporate other media into our analog situation paintings.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Fabulous!!! I guessed quite a few of these emotions before I saw the label.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...