Framed art sculptures inspired by Louise Nevelson

Using famous artists as inspiration in teaching art to kids is a great way to inspire creativity.  Today I am going to share our latest art activity and how we created framed art sculptures inspired by Louise Nevelson.

Every spring I do a lot of teaching around recycling and taking care of our environment.  The warm weather and blooming flowers set a perfect backdrop for talking about keeping our community clean, garbage free and how to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.  As we learn about all the ways we can recycle we tend to collect a lot of "stuff" or "junk" that we try to re-use or re-purpose.   One of the ways we use our found objects is to create collages and art sculptures.

Louise Nevelson is one of my favorite sculptors to share with my students.  She was an artist most known for her monochromatic abstract expressionist sculptures.  Her most famous sculptures were created with materials such as wood, paper, aluminum and other pieces of found objects from the streets of New York and she would assemble the pieces in open-faced wooden boxes that were stacked and grouped to make free-standing walls and displays.  Her sculptures were painted in a single color, usually black, but sometimes white or gold.

To create our sculptures we need to have the following supplies:

• a base (picture frame, or shoe box, shoe box lid, or piece of wood or cardboard)
• found objects (anything from the recycling bin, including toilet rolls, nuts, bolts, clothespins, etc.)
• glue (wood glue, Elmers glue, hot glue gun, cool glue gun)
• spray paint 

To start my lessons I like to share photographs of Louise Nevelson's sculptures and have my students study each piece pointing out the different items in each box and try to figure out what each piece used to be.  We talk a lot about what shapes and lines we see (circle, oval, rectangle, curved, straight, etc..) as well as what the concept of abstract means, and also about how different pieces can be layered or placed on top of each other to create designs. 

Next I hand out the bases for our sculptures.  In the past I have used shoe boxes, shoe box lids and picture frames.  I love the look of shoe boxes because they remind me of Louise Nevelson's sculptures the most but I find picture frames work the best with my students because when we dismantle our display and send home our art work, parents tend to toss the shoe boxes but keep the art in the picture frame.

So once we have our base I have the students experiment with some of the found and collected materials and see what they can create by layering and using many different shapes.  We walk around and share our different creations.  I make sure to point out where I see layering, use of different shapes and lines, interesting use of space and use of empty space (this is hard for some).  I find this step is very important and is a must before I bring out the glue, otherwise I end up with a lot of flat pieces as they focus on filling up the space instead of layering and creating an interesting collection. 

After sharing, the students go back and try to add to their sculptures, and then I bring out the glue.  So for most items white glue or wood glue works just fine but with heavier items they need to be hot glued in order to stay.  I usually set up a cool glue gun at each table group and the students share the glue as they need to.  With younger students you might want to have them design the sculpture first and then the teacher or older helper could do the hot glue step.

Once the sculptures are glued and dried, we take them outside and spray paint them.   I like to use a cardboard box in case I get crazy with the spray paint.

 

Once they are dry, they can be displayed as a group or left to be individual art pieces.

This post is part of the Exploring Famous Artists Blog series hosted by Messy Little Monster.
 

How to make a paper mache love bird for Valentine's day

Paper Mache we have all heard of it but are you brave enough to have your students or kids use it?  Paper mache is the process where you take a glue mixture made from water and flour or white glue and dip newspapers or paper towels in it and construct your sculpture.  Sounds very scary now doesn't it!  But it really is not.  It's actually very simple and works great for kids crafts.  The hardest part is deciding what you are going to make!

For this project we decided to make Valentine Love Birds.  Aren't they cute!  These were made by my own kiddos (5 years old).

Supplies needed:

• newspaper or paper towel
• cardboard
• masking tape
• flour (1 cup)
• water (2 cups)
• salt (1tsp)

To begin you need to deign your base or basic shape.  There are many ways you can do this.  Some people use balloons and some use newspaper or cardboard.  To make our love birds, I decided to use newspaper.  We scrunched the paper into balls and then taped two balls on top of each other.  We also added a beak, made by folding a cardboard rectangle in half and then we taped it on as well.

Next you need to cut up strips of newspaper or paper towel and prepare your glue mixture.  There are many different paper mache recipes.  Some use white glue, some use rubbing alcohol, some use flour, some use salt, and the list goes on....  For our love birds I decided to use 1 cup of flour, 2 cups of water and a tsp of salt.

What you are left with is a nice goopy, globby, drippy concoction.  This next step is defineately the fun part.  You take the newspaper strips (or paper towel) one at a time and dip them into the mixture and then simply wrap them around your base.  You keep doing this until you have about 3 layers and your entire base is covered.   Some kids will not like touching the mixture and won't add enough layers and others will get right into it and have a drippy, soggy, blob.  Just keep reminding them to add one layer at a time and to cover the whole area.  The great thing about paper mache is that it is forgiving when it is wet.  Simply pull off layers or add layers until you get your desired result.  Then you have to let it dry.  It will take at least overnight.

When it is dry, take a little sand paper and give it a quick sanding, just to take off all the left over flour globs and give it a smooth finish.

Lastly you get to paint it!  Now you might want to give it a quick layer of white paint first as a primer coat before you get into the colored paint but that is up to you.

 

And voila!  After adding some feathers our love birds were done just it time for Valentine's Day! 

This post is part of the Ultimate Guide to 50 Craft Materials Linky, Coordinated by Craftulate.  50 different bloggers each presented an ultimate guide to different crafting materials.  To see the list of all 50 Craft Materials and the corresponding blog posts and linky head on over to Craftulate.

If you have any posts that show off your paper mache ideas and projects please link them up below.

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