Category Archives: sculpture

Art + Cooking Camp: Degas, Sculpture and Chocolate Fondue

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We had a fabulous time all week at my Paris-themed art and cooking camp. On the last day, we wrapped up our sculpture project and made yummy chocolate fondue.

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A couple of campers wanted to make animal sculptures. They used foil and plaster or white Sculpey polymer clay to create their creatures. Not so Parisian, but I love how they turned out.

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The recipe for chocolate fondue was the easiest of all our recipes this week: 8 oz. of chopped semi-sweet chocolate heated with 1/3 cup of half-and-half. Pound cake cubes, whole strawberries and sliced banana tasted delicious dipped in the warm chocolate.
So much fun!

Enjoy!


Let’s Go to Paris! Art + Cooking Camp
Day One: Crepes and Monet
Day Two: Madeleines and the Eiffel Tower
Day Three: Meringues and Degas
Day Four: Cherry Cake and Pointillism

Art + Cooking Camp: Meringues and Degas

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Today was Day Three of my Paris-themed art and cooking camp. We began by making meringues and ended by beginning our Degas-inspired sculptures.

Meringues:

Meringues are really fun to make. CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE (AND VIDEO!). We had lots of practice separating eggs. Then we whipped those egg whites and sugar up, up, up into glossy peaks, and piped them onto the baking sheets using a pastry bag and a star tip. The kids had a lot of fun making ‘custom’ giant and mini meringues, and trying to make letter-shaped meringues.

making meringues

Unfortunately, meringues take forever to bake – at least two hours at 200 degrees F. Then they have to cool. So we won’t taste the completed meringues until tomorrow. Not the best choice for a three-hour AM camp. It was humid today – another meringue no-no. Oh well, at least we didn’t bake them on the last day of camp.

Degas-inspired Sculpture:

We talked about Degas. Degas was a French artist who is famous for creating snapshot-like pastel artworks of racehorses and ballet dancers. Unlike the other Impressionists, he did not focus on the quality of light, and created his work indoors (Actually, Degas did not consider himself an Impressionist). After his eyesight started to fail, he switched to sculpture. He initially sculpted his famous ‘Little Dancer Age 14’ in wax on a wire armature; it was later cast in bronze.

We created wire and foil armatures and covered them in plaster wrap. Some kids are creating dancers and some are creating animals. This took about an hour.

 

degas sculpture art campTomorrow we will make cherry clafouti and finish up our sculptures.

Enjoy (and bon appetit!)

Do you like to cook? Have you taught anyone to cook?

Wayne Thiebaud Ice Cream Cones Roundup

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wayne thiebaud ice cream cones

 

Summer is almost here. Why not try a warm-weather twist on Wayne Thiebaud with an ice cream art lesson? Check out these ice cream cone lessons using paint, collage, papier-mache and more.

thiebaud cones

cone collage

Directed Draw/Paint:

  • 1. I discovered an entire Wayne Thiebaud unit at the fabulous Danish Fru Billedkunst (“Mrs. Fine Art”) blog. Click here for her step-by-step ice cream cone drawing diagram.

Our second graders began by folding their paper into quarters. The horizontal fold became the table edge. Students drew two cones on each side of the vertical fold. We used crayons and tempera cakes. Students had the option of painting a background, or cutting out their art and gluing it to construction paper. They looked so beautiful at our school art show (see photo at top of post).

Here are some more interesting ideas for Thiebaud-inspired ice cream fun:

Collage:

  • 2. Miss Young’s Art Room has a simple ice cream collage for kindergarten
  • 3. ARTASTIC! has a torn paper collage that would be great for using up all those paper scraps at the end of the year

Templates:

Group project:

  • 5. Kids Artists has a whole-class painted paper ice cream cone collage.

Papier Mache Sculpture:

  • 6. Phyl’s There’s a Dragon in My Art Room blog has an awesome papier-mache ice cream cone sculpture project using a paper water cone, newspaper, masking tape and art paste.

More resources

My Wayne Thiebaud Powerpoint includes repetition of simple shapes, variety, use of thick paint, horizon line and shadow.

I always show my ancient (circa 2000!) Behind the Scenes with Wayne Thiebaud [VHS] – it includes Mr. Thiebaud drawing an ice cream cone. Oh, why can’t I find a DVD or digital version??

Wayne Thiebaud video from CBS

Whatever project you choose, your students are bound to have fun!

 

Enjoy!

 

Do you have a favorite ice cream cone project?

LIFELIKE: Trompe L’oeil Sculpture (and More)

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Trompe l’oeil means ‘fools the eye’ in French. Maybe you have seen a painting or sidewalk chalk art that looked so real you felt you could walk right into it. I just came from MCASD’s extraordinary LIFELIKE show which features trompe l’oeil sculpture (and painting) of everyday items. It is one of the rare museum exhibits I’ve seen that is perfect for children of all ages! Here are a few pieces.

Ai Wei Wei’s Sunflower Seeds:

Ai Wei Wei's porcelain sunflower seeds look absolutely real!

Ai Wei Wei’s porcelain sunflower seeds look absolutely real!

These sunflower seeds are unbelievably real, even close up. They are porcelain, hand painted with slip.

Not your everyday bag:

Susan Collis' 'Refugee' bag

 

Susan Collis’ bag looks so ordinary – something you’d use to carry your laundry. Look closely – it is not woven, but constructed of paper meticulously colored with ballpoint pen and graphite. WHOA.

Hyper-realism on a different scale:

Mueck's unbelievably lifelike sculpture of a child. Photo source: New Orleans Museum of Art

Mueck’s unbelievably lifelike sculpture of a child. Photo source: New Orleans Museum of Art

Ron Mueck makes hyper-realistic sculptures of people. The scale is off – this crouching boy is too small. Mueck uses polyester resin for the skin – you can see every toenail and wrinkle.

A ‘working’ elevator:

These tiny elevators' doors open and close.

These tiny elevators’ doors open and close.

Maurizio Cattelan’s tiny elevators are really popular. The doors open with a ding and close with a tiny thud. Folks were crowded around the artwork waiting for the doors to open.

LIFELIKE originated at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.  It closes at MCASD on May 27 and reopens in Austin, Texas in June. If you are in town, check out the museum AND TAKE THE KIDS!

p.s. to San Diegans: The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) always has FREE admission to everyone under 25!

Want to see even more? Check out this 5-minute video.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

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