Tag Archives: sculpture

Tree Huggers – Environmentally-Friendly Sculptures

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tree huggers - CAEA 2013

Do you like to create art outdoors?

Imagine a warm fall day in the mountains. Now imagine a bunch of art teachers walking among the trees and gathering leaves, acorns, dried grasses, and branches. That describes our Tree Huggers outdoor art workshop offered at CAEA Southern Area Conference, held amidst the pines at Idyllwild, California.

 

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Our sculptures were inspired by the Tree Hugger Project by Agnieszka Gradzik and Wiktor Szostalo. Tree Hugger Project installations feature large-scale figures created from branches and vines gathered on site. Copenhagen, St. Louis and New York City have had Tree Hugger Project installations.

 

tree hugger from CAEA 2013

 

Workshop participants created their own tree huggers using gathered cones, grasses, and branches. The instructor provided corn husks and raffia to bind the figures.

When doing this project with children, you may want to let them gather for a set amount of time. Just in case, you may want to  have extra branches and leaves on hand.

 

tree huggers from CAEA southern area conference 2013

 

Art teachers had a great time making these sculptures. Imagine how Tree Huggers would look in your town, created from your own regional (and seasonal) gathered materials.

Thanks to our instructor, Dr. Kenneth Sakatani, for leading the Tree Hugger workshop at CAEA Southern Area Conference.

 Enjoy!

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?

Journey Through the City: Interactive Sculpture

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Journey Through the City Interactive Sculpture

It’s winter break here in San Diego, and I celebrated with a trip to the San Diego Museum of Art. I enjoyed a FABULOUS, fun, free exhibit that will definitely appeal to children: Beneath the Moon II: Journey through the City by Miquel Navarro. It is an interactive sculpture/game/artwork made of 1000+ pieces of cast metal, ready to be assembled by visitors of all ages.

Navarro created this artwork in 1994 for the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Since then, it has toured the world, delighting children in Europe, Asia and Mexico. Here is a video of French school children enjoying Beneath the Moon.

 

Discussion:

What can you do in the art room to tie into Beneath the Moon II: Journey Through the City? You may want to start with a discussion. What is a city? What do we see in the city? We might see houses, factories, roads, trains, freeways, rivers, bridges or skyscrapers. Swimming pools and skate parks! Do cities stay the same forever or do they change?

Lesson Ideas:

If you visit:

The exhibit is open during regular Museum hours through April 30, 2013. There is no charge for this special exhibition, located in the new Welcome Gallery on the first floor. For docent-led school tours and group visits, click here.

The San Diego Museum of Art is located in beautiful Balboa Park, home to 15 major museums, the world-famous San Diego Zoo, theaters, gardens and much more.

A final tip: allot some time….YOUR KID WON’T WANT TO LEAVE!!!

 

NOTE TO SAN DIEGO COUNTY TEACHERS/ART TEACHERS, K-12

Would you like to see your students’ artworks exhibited at the San Diego Museum of Art? Young Art, the Museum’s exhibition of local student art, opens April 13, 2013.  The theme is ‘The Story of Me’. This is a juried exhibition.  Click here for more information. The deadline for submission is February 9, 2013.

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