Wednesday, October 28, 2015

7th Grade 3D- Henry Moore Sculpture

So last year, I tried this project with my class and it was a disaster. A few kids got it but most of the projects were a hot mess. I told the kids to just start carving and to think about the overall shape they were leaving behind. They had to focus on the positive space, not the negative space that they were removing, even though those holes were going to be important. What I ended up with was lines and smiley faces carved into the foam...not exactly what I was looking for and not exactly focusing on the positive space.
After a lot of thought, I came up with a solution to the problem of freely carving. This is going to sound nuts but we scribbled! We took a sheet of paper that was long enough to wrap around the block of foam and scribbled...big loopy scribbles like this:

Next, we outlined the outside shape and at least 5 holes in the middle like this:
 After tracing, we cut out our template and pinned it to our block of floral foam.
Using clay loop tools, we carved out everything that was not covered with paper.
After the initial carving, we took off the paper and I showed the class how to carve all the way through, how to make the holes bigger, how to create layers so the surface wasn't flat, and how to carve in behind shapes to make them pop out. We still focused on the shapes we were leaving behind and I emphasized the importance of carving away a lot to create an interesting form.
After we finished carving, we smoothed with our fingers and then coated the entire thing with mod podge to get rid of the green dust that was creating a haze in the classroom.
Next, we painted the entire sculpture black
Finally, we used a dry brush technique to add metallic paint to give the sculpture the look of metal.
Here are the results...





  

10 comments:

  1. This is awesome! Mind if I try it with my kiddos?

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  2. Go for it! It's super easy! Use the green blocks of floral foam. It only takes 5-7 days to complete!

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  3. Bringing this back up after several years. Did you use acrylic paint?

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    1. First we used mod podge to cover the whole thing to keep the floral foam from getting everywhere. Then black acrylic paint on the whole thing. Then metallic acrylic paint dabbed on.

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  4. Hi! Pinterest bought me here, and I love this project! Some questions for you: What size was the floral foam? Do you think this project will work with a 9 x 6 balsa foam that's only 1/2" thick? I can always try one but since you've done this project, your advice will be very helpful!

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    1. The foam we used was 8x4x3. I don't know if the 1/2" dimension would work well but you could always give it a shot and see.

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  5. What a great lesson. Thanks for sharing.

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  6. Just a little workplace health and safety tip from a florist - if you can find the dry 'sec' grey coloured floral foam, use that instead. It is designed to be manipulated while dry, can be glued using hot glue, and won't produce nasty toxic dust. The green stuff is designed to be carved while wet (it is used with fresh flowers) and the dry dust is known to be dangerous when breathed in. Florists are told this during training. Cheers, Anna.

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  7. Thank you very much, we had a great time doing this, really brilliant idea with scribbling on paper to design the sculpture! Thanks!! Olga

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  8. will be trying this!! thanks!! question.....did you use gloss or matte modge podge?
    Mike

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