Paper Sculptures

What is sculpture? It is a 3-dimensional work of art. A work of this kind, whether large or small can be viewed from all sides. We can walk around it, and sometimes under or over it. Sculpture has come a long way from carved marble, stone or cast bronze pieces. Now we see sculpture in all shapes, sizes and materials.

Yesterday the OKCMOA had a table at the OKC Philharmonic for the Childrens Concert Series. Trying to relate a project with their theme for the day which was Music in Motion and our current exhibit, Jason Peters: Anti.Gravity.Material.Light was not as difficult as I thought. Peters does sculpture. The Phil does music. I thought about moving sculptures and what we could create with over 200 kids in an hour. Paper sculptures! I love to see kids build in this way. It forces them to think about art differently. Most kids can easily pick up a crayon or paintbrush. This pushes them to be hands on. It is also great for those motor skills! It was a busy day for the roads being so icy. I guess everyone had cabin fever. I would have taken more pictures, but we had SO many kids come through, I barely had the time to take the few pictures I did! Have fun with this project!

We started with our base piece of construction paper. I had the kids cut pieces and asked them what happens when we fold or bend paper. We worked on accordion folds, tubes, curling and more.

You will need:
-Construction paper (one piece for base and scraps)
-Other papers (I like the fadeless art paper, but you could even try scrapbooking papers for a different look)
-scissors
-double side sticky tape
-we used colored masking tape too-fun!

Here are a few examples:

Little Kandinsky's

Nice crowd today at the Museum for Drop-in-Art. I had this class prepared for last weekend, but the Museum was closed due to snow and ice. Today we focused on Kandinsky. At first thought I was going to concentric circles, but I could not find a single photo of it in any book at the library. I thought that would have been easy enough! Oh well. We had plenty of fun and a little more freedom doing it this way.





I had the kids look at a few examples from books. We broke the paintings down into shapes and lines. We talked about organic shapes and geometric shapes. We talked about lines and all the kinds of lines there are.

First I had the children draw lines and shapes using oil pastels. Then we used watercolors to fill in the white space. So much imagination...so much fun!



You will need:
-50 lb watercolor paper
-oil pastels
-watercolors
-brushes

Here are just a few of the wonderful pieces the kids created today!

Winter Resist

This is a fun resist project using oil pastels and watercolors. We used cool colors and the white of the paper and pastels to create snowy winterscapes. First use white oil pastel to make tree branches and snow. Go in with blue pastels to create cedars and other lines. When applying watercolors, the oil pastels will resist and show through. Add salt on top of water colors to create a fun effect! For extra snow, grab a toothbrush and white tempera paint for snowy splatter!

You will need:
-8x10 50 lb water color paper
-oil pastels
-watercolors and brushes
-salt (optional)
-white tempera paint & toothbrush

Winter Collage

Yesterday at Drop-in-Art we created a winter wonderland in a mixed media collage project. I am the artist for December and we are doing fun things at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

Dec. 12-ornament making (this is another artist, it's my little guy's birthday!)
Dec 19th- Matisse cut out Christmas Cards
Dec 26th-Kandinsky Paintings

Yesterday I encouraged children to think about what it looks like outside in winter. What colors made them think of cold weather, do trees have leaves, etc. We talked about background, foreground, and perspective.



I had two tables set up. One table was the collage table. The children cut and glued their background using bright non fade art paper and scrapbook papers. I showed them they could not only cut paper, but tear paper as well.



After they filled their page they took their piece to the painting table. Here I had black acrylic (the tempera was too transparent) with a variety of brushes for them to paint tree silhouettes in the foreground.

We dried our papers with a hair dryer (this was to help prevent smearing when we move to white paint) and then moved to the splatter station. Here I had white tempera paints set out with toothbrushes and more paintbrushes. This was the magical snowy part. We had a lot of fun and I hope you will too!

You will need:
-14x11 tagboard (heavy paper)
-paper for collage
-scissors
-glue stick
-black acrylic paint
-brushes
-white tempera paint
-toothbrushes
-hairdryer with adult assistance

A few of the child pieces

Warhol Fall

For a day of Drop in Art fun we focused on repetition and color drawing inspiration from Andy Warhol. I had the kids think of one fall item and it had to be something simple enough to draw several times.



These examples have 9 drawings, but they could be done in in any number combination. We used black marker to divide our paper into sections and then we drew that one item in each section. We used oil pastels to fill in the areas. It was fun for the kids and parents to use oil pastels. Many commented on how much they liked them and that they had never used oil pastel before.



You will need:
-white paper any size
-black marker
-pencil (optional to lightly sketch first)
-ruler (optional)
-oil pastels

Fall Finger Leaves

In this fun class for ages 15-36 months we focused on the beginning of fall. We looked at a few books and talked about trees and how the color of the leaves are going to start changing.
I had wanted Lois Ehlert's Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf but all copies were checked out of ALL local libraries! I ordered it from Amazon so I will have it for our collection here at the house. I really enjoy all of Ehlert's books, so do my boys.

We talked about trees, fall colors and found them in the museum. In the class we rolled up our sleeves to create our own Ode to Fall-via fingertips, paint, glue and paper. We glued the brown strips to make trunks and used our fingers and hands to create fall foliage. (Getting hands in paint is a great sensory building experience.)



You will need:
-14x11 piece of student grade watercolor paper
-strips of brown construction paper
-red, yellow, orange washable paint
-glue

While our pieces dried we sang a little song to movement: (tune of London Bridge)

autumn leaves are falling down,
falling down,
falling down

autumn leaves are falling down,
red,
gold,
and brown.

So much fun!

Sensory Sculptures

Wow. Where has the time gone? We have been very busy here with my oldest starting Kindergarten this year and our youngest in Preschool. I've been painting away on 3 commissioned paintings, working on 12x12, teaching a few classes and just busy being Mom!

Before we get to one of my latest projects, I want to say thanks to The Crafty Crow for featuring me again! I was excited to see my Cezanne Still Lifes on your site!

Sensory Sculptures was a class for toddlers-ages 15-36 months. We talked about 3-D sculpture and how it is something we can see from all sides. It might look different on each side, so it is fun to walk around the sculpture and see what it looks like from all angles. We learned we can even walk under some sculptures and see them from the top. We looked at two books. To learn about sensory we read,

Feed Matisse's Fish.
To see examples of sculpture we looked at Bob Raczka's 3-D ABC.
In the Museum we looked at our 3rd floor gallery and looked at Modern Sculpture.

Back in the classroom we got busy.



You will need
-6x6 piece of corrugated cardboard
-a handful of air dry clay. I like Crayola.
-pipe cleaners
-beads, buttons, jewels and feathers
-pom-poms
-glue



First we squeezed and manipulated our clay how we wanted it. We placed it on top of the cardboard and began to add pipe cleaners, buttons, beads, etc by pushing them into the clay. We learned we could bend the pipe cleaners and even slide beads onto them. To finish we glued some pom-poms onto our cardboard. The clay will harden within hours and completely overnight.

They turned out really neat and this is a great sensory-motor skill project for kids. Here are some examples.