Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Art Club- Packing Tape Sculptures


 I'm sure many of you have seen the packing tape sculpture craze all over Pinterest. As soon as I saw it at the beginning of the school year, I knew it was something I had to try with my art club kids. We looked at the artwork of Mark Jenkins. Jenkins is an American artist who creates packing tape installations. The kids loved his work. It was so fun and unexpected.




To start, the kids got into groups of 3-4 to help speed up the taping process. The first layer of tape had to be wrapped sticky side out. The following 2-3 layers were wrapped sticky side in. Once they got a large section wrapped (or when they wrapped too tight and the model started losing circulation), they cut the tape off and taped the form back together. Every student in art club will get to be the model for this project. I cannot wait to see these finished!
Some important lessons we learned today was to not wrap too tightly and to not wrap too many layers or you run out of tape quickly.
Here are some progress photos!










And here is a fun little video of a quick way to wrap the torso...

Here are more photos from 2/5/13








 "The proposal"
Gangnam Style

The tangled mess of body parts!
More photos from 2/6/13




41 comments:

  1. My question may be kind of obvious, but, how do you handle the "awkward areas" of these full-body sculptures? I mean, obviously girls would help girls and vice versa, but aren't the kids weireded out by this?

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  2. For wrapping the groin area, most of the kids wrapped themselves. For the chest area, the girls were able to stand back and just wrap so nobody was touching anything. And yes, girls worked with girls and boys worked with boys.

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  3. At first glance, I thought they're made of glass. But I'm amazed to find out that these are made out of packing tapes. Who would have thought that a tool once used only for packing purposes can be used to create an art? These kids definitely nailed it!

    Thelma Bowman @ QualityStrapping.com

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  4. I thinks this is a fantastic project! I have to do it some day with one of my art classes. :-)
    Thanks for sharing
    /Lisbeth (a danish art teacher)

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  5. This is awesome! I'd like to try it with my art club. How many rolls of tape did you need and for how many students? Thanks!

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    1. We planned about 2 rolls per kid. Some used a little more, some used a little less.

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    2. Long shot since this was 2014 but how did you go about wrapping the head??

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    3. Put plastic wrap on their heads first to prevent tape from possibly sticking to the hair. Wrap loosely. Teacher cuts it off to prevent kids from cutting each other. Leave the nose or mouth open so they can breathe.

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    4. Use mannequin heads or styrofoam heads

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    5. hi. sorry this may be a stupid question, but how do you get the tape off? do you just pull it off? doesnt it break?

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  6. Maravilloso este proyecto, lo pondré en marcha con mis estudiantes, gracias por compartirlo.Feliz Navidad.
    Soy de Colombia y trabajo en un orfanato...

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  7. I would ask if there is a problem unmold, to leave in parts, especially the center of the body. It is like taking off a sweater, with help, of course?
    An incredible job. Visit my page on http://carmencastellanos.blogspot.com.es/
    Thank you very much,
    Carmen Castellanos

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  8. These are wonderful! I am starting this project with my 8th grade students this week and they are so excited. One question, how did you handle the face and head? Thank you!

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    1. For the head, I wrap them in saran wrap first and then apply one layer of tape, sticky side in. I also cut the kids out of their heads to avoid hair or face cutting.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  9. I just started this project with my students and they absolutely love it! Thanks for sharing!

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  10. this would be neat with white string LED lights - inside. The kids could hang them from their ceiling like they are flying or standing up.

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  11. this would be neat with white string LED lights - inside. The kids could hang them from their ceiling like they are flying or standing up.

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  12. how many days did this project take for each student in the group to finish up with?

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    Replies
    1. it takes about 3 days for each kid to finish.

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  13. These are wonderful!! How did you get the head done while having the child keep breathing?? :)

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    Replies
    1. Just leave a hole either around their nose or mouth.

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  14. After you do a section of the body, do the kids just cut off it off with scissors and retape it together?

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  15. How did you build the giraffe and ducks??

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    Replies
    1. Those were not made by me or my students. It was made by artist Mark Jenkins.

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  16. Replies
    1. We put plastic wrap over the kids heads first to make sure that we didn't accidentally get tape in their hair. Then wrap as normal but leave the nose or mouth open. I cut the tape off of their heads very carefully. Some kids also chose to not do heads. We didn't have manikin heads.

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    2. You could hold in place a thicker strip of plastic, like from a tarp or a mattress bag, from the top of the head down to the back of the neck before wrapping with plastic wrap. Then use it as a layer of insurance to cut over top of. This would lower the risk of cutting hair or head when removing. Great project.

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  17. I did this with my art club, but I had 2 manakin heads we used to wrap for the faces/heads.

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  18. how long did each take to create?

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  19. Nice Article, I love the way you describe this topic and I got very effective information related to packaging and shipping. Good Packaging improves the user's experience and best services satisfaction since always use the best packaging boxes and packaging tapes. Nice work. Keep it up.

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  20. Wow, all of these packing tapes sculptures are looking awesome especially the zebra one. Thanks for sharing such a creative post.

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  21. Great project- excited to attempt this with my grade 5/6 art students!

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  22. Have you ever painted over it? I want to try to make a mannequin to dress her up for a party but need her to have flesh tones over the arms and chest. Any suggestions?

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    Replies
    1. I think the paint would flake...maybe spray paint would work? Or you could try to stuff it with flesh colored tissue paper.

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    2. You can buy tan coloured packing tape ! Easy

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  23. I want to make a horse and put lights in it!!! How do you make an animal ?? We have a horse but I don’t think we could wrap it very easily!!!

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  24. The student that did the llama wrapped his arms several times and used his torso and neck and then pieced it together. I forget what he did for the head. Maybe wrapped it around a newspaper form?

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