Calder Wire Sculpture for Fifth Grade

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Rina Vinetz

Of all the famous artists we study, students think Alexander Calder is the most fun. Fifth graders made Calder-inspired wire animal sculptures.

Alexander Calder’s Fish (1944).

5th graders made wire sculptures focusing on contour. Allow 2-3 40 minute sessions.

Materials:

Notes: When buying wire, the higher the gauge, the thinner and more flexible the wire. The wires below are soft enough for students to cut with our blunt-tip school scissors! Simplify your life and buy pre-cut 18″ floral wire (available at floral suppliers, Wal-Mart and Michaels).

spool of Dick Blick 14-gauge Armature and Sculpture Wire , (cut one 3 ft. piece per student) (note: compensated affiliate link)
pre-cut 18″ floral wire, 20 or 22 gauge, ‘bright’ (silver-colored aluminum)
pre-cut 18″ floral wire, 26 gauge. I call this super-fine and flexible wire ‘sewing wire’ because it is fine enough to pass through sequins, beads and window screen.
embellishments: buttons, beads, sequins, aluminum pot scrubbers, pipe cleaners, aluminum window screen.
sketch paper (we use 8.5″x11″ copy paper)
markers for sketching
optional: Ziploc gallon-size storage bags for storing unfinished work between sessions

We begin by looking at this Calder wire sculpture Powerpoint. Next students sketch a contour drawing of an animal on copy paper. The sketch should touch all four edges of the paper and should be simple. Then students trace the contour with 14 gauge sculpture wire, overlap the ends and twist to secure.

Trace marker sketch with wire.

They can string shorter wires or pipe cleaners with beads, sequins and buttons across the center. Encourage kids to experiment.

We link up the sculptures in a chain (using my favorite paper-clip ‘S’ hooks) and suspend from the ceiling. Instant group Calder mobile!

Calder’s art is so varied and interesting, you could do an entire unit: a mobile lesson, stabile lesson, a wire sculpture lesson, a circus lesson, even a jewelry lesson.

Do you love Calder’s art? Check out my posts on Calder’s jewelry , Calder wire portraits, and best wire sculptures of 2012.

UPDATE: Calder books to read online for free! Click here

NEW: click here: How to make a Calder mobile!

Note: I am an affiliate of Blick Art Supplies. I have been using Blick Armature and Sculpture Wire for nine years and LOVE it!

UPDATED: 11/23/13

Chalk Pastel Stencils Part 2: Collage

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Rina Vinetz

After creating chalk pastel stencil art with multiple classes last week I had a lot of colorful used stencils. I sprayed them with fixative (Aqua Net unscented hairspray) and glued them to construction paper.

Students outlines stencil opening with chalk pastel and brushes color inward.

Used die-cut and hand-cut stencils make another kind of Valentine.

Which is more beautiful- stencil art or used stencil art? I can’t decide…Happy Valentine’s Day!

Chalk Pastel Stencils – Quick, Easy and Beautiful

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Rina Vinetz

5th graders used chalk pastels and cut paper stencils to make overlapping hearts.

These beautiful chalk pastel stencils take only one 40 minute session!

Materials:

Chalk Pastels
Stiff brush (we use our old tempera brushes)
scissors
construction paper for background (we used white 9″x12″)
construction paper cut approx. 4″x6″ for making stencils
optional: ready-made stencils

Instructions:

Fold the small rectangle in half. Draw a half heart on the fold and cut out.

Students can use both the positive and negative shapes from homemade stencils.

Color around the edges of the cut out 'window'.

Now take the stiff brush and brush the colored pastel into the stencil ‘window’.

These pink hearts 'stencils' were made on the school die-cut machine.

Lift up the stencil. Students will ooh and aah if they have never tried this process before! Now shift the stencil and repeat the process. Encourage students to overlap.

Now take the positive shape and color the edge with pastel. Place on the background paper, and brush the color outward onto the paper.

Positive shape can be used as a stencil.

Nice composition and color.

We reused our die-cut stencils for three classes. We just colored and colored again around the edges. Tell the students to relax – it’s going to look beautiful.

Students can also color the background.

Another stencil made on the school die-cut machine.

This student used his stencils to make a bird.

This method would be very interesting with cut paper snowflakes or doilies.

Experiment with doilies.

Try a homemade snowflake stencil.

Minimize the mess: ask students to tap their excess chalk pastel dust onto a piece of newspaper.

What to do with all those used colorful stencils? Try this used stencil collage project. Double the art fun!

This method came from the San Diego Museum of Art 2010 Educator’s Art Fair. The lesson can easily be adapted for all grades K-6.

Seurat Pointillism Mural (and more!)

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Rina Vinetz

Need a group art project? 4th grade just completed a pointillism mural based on Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon at the Island of La Grade Jatte”.

‘La Parade’ by George Seurat. 1889

Day 1:

Introduce pointillism. We discussed how Seurat made paintings in a whole new way: instead of blending colors, he placed different colors of dots side by side and let the viewer’s eye mix them.

Close up view:

I passed out some greeting cards with pointillist art and let students examine them closely. They really need to see the art works up close to appreciate how many dots Seurat put in his paintings (tip: pass out magnifying glasses for a close up view). I added some great close-ups to this Seurat Powerpoint (sadly I am not sure who posted this Powerpoint).

Pointillist notecards + magnifier


UPDATE: Thanks to Google Art Project, you can view A Sunday on La Grade Jatte at incredible zoom level (flash required).


Google Art Project has a Seurat from MoMA in its online collection: you can view Seurat’s ‘Evening, Honfleur’ at incredible zoom level. Notice that Seurat used dots on the artwork and the picture frame!


Individual warm-up project: make your name in dots on a 4.5″x12″ strip of paper. Color the background with dots as well. We used Q-tips and pan watercolors.

Make your name in dots as an introduction to pointillism.

Days 2-3:

Group project. I purchased the downloadable pdf mural ‘Sunday in the Park’ from Art Projects for Kids ($8). The pdf contains a 28-piece mural (perfect size for a 4th grade class!) which you print onto cardstock. Each student ‘dotted’ their respective part of the mural, using the coloring guide included in the download.

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte

Seurat’s famous ” (aka ‘Sunday in the Park’). Seurat’s masterpiece contains over 3 million dots and took over 2 years to complete.

28 individual pointillist artworks come together to form Seurat mural.

The assembled mural is 55 inches x 40 inches.

We carefully assembled the mural by attaching long strips of masking tape on the seams (note: get a helper for assembly!). Bonus: it folds up like a map! Easy to store until the art show.

The completed mural.

The kids really enjoyed this project. I did notice there was a lot of variety in the assembled mural – some students made a near-solid dot pattern with almost no white paper showing. Others had sparsely dotted areas. Next year I will use this pointillism practice worksheet from Miss Young’s Art Room blog.

Pointillism worksheet from Miss Young’s Art Room blog.

Options:

Individual coloring sheet for ‘Sunday in the Park’. From Practical Pages blog.

Want an individual project based on ‘Sunday in the Park’? There is a great post including download on the Practical Pages blog.

Try out different materials for pointillism:

Q-Tip + tempera
Marker
Unused eraser tip from a standard pencil + pan watercolor
Unused eraser tip from a standard pencil + stamp pad

Stamp pad + eraser tip

How do you teach pointillism to your students? Leave a comment!

UPDATE 10/17/13:

NEW!!! Pointillism art project – make pointillist FOOD using watercolors, q-tips and markers! AWESOME pointillism video! Click here.

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