Tape Sculpture Project

Last week we had the most fun in an Art Club so far this term! Both the children and I agreed that making tape sculptures was so much fun!

I brought in a range of large objects including plastic flowerpots, outdoor light casings, wellington boots and small wooden chairs.

The process was simple- cover the whole object in tape with the sticky side up, then re-cover the whole object again with the tape sticky side down.

After this process, I used a sharp blade to cut the tape away from the form inside it. This is a careful process to make sure that cuts are made in the right places! Then it was up to the children to tape up the seams to create the finished sculpture!

The children were so overjoyed with their finished pieces. You can't get better than a double thumbs up!

I made a display around the willow in the garden to show the amazing work off to the parents - they were all very impressed. Enjoy!

Aboriginal inspired Dot Paintings

This week the children made aboriginal inspired dot paintings. We saw that the aborigines made artworks of things that were important to them; fires, campsites and kangaroos were just some of the reoccurring themes.
So I asked the children what was important to them and they made lots of suggestions; family, flowers, myself, pets and even mobile phones were some of the answers.

So the children drew out what was important to them on a sheet of A2 paper and then chose 4 or 5 colours to make their painting. Some of the children drew around their hand like in one of the examples, to represent themselves.

They made the dots using the rubber on the end of a pencil. To get a nice dot every time and equal spacing between the dots was a challenge - it required a lot of concentration!

Here are some of the finished ones, enjoy!

Human Painting Project

For 2 weeks this term, the children embarked on a project called "The Human Painting' Here's a concept image I made to explain the idea to the kids:

The way it worked is that the children were each given a piece of calico to hang over themselves, kind of like a poncho. Then they chose some fabric samples they liked from a huge bag of fabrics. They cut out the samples into squares and circles and laid them onto their costumes to form abstract designs.

The children had to decide who they would be positioned next to in the final artwork. To keep continuity each child make sure their costume featured the same fabric on theirs, as their neighbours.

They took great care in pinning the fabric together. A couple of the children even got into some sewing. It was a joy to see the concentration on their faces!

After each costume was complete, a few of the children laid out the remaining pieces of fabric on the lawn, everyone got in their positions and I climbed on the climbing frame to get the final picture from above:

3D Animal Relief Paintings

Welcome to Art Club!
I look forward to making lots of beautiful artworks with you!

The children got busy on their first project
'3D Animal Relief Paintings'.

Firstly, the children chose a printout of an animal that they liked from a huge collection that I brought in.  Secondly, they shaped their animal in newspaper. This was tricky at first, but they soon got to grips with looking at the shapes of the animals and transferring them into shapes of newspaper. Finally they secured their shapes down onto their piece of cardboard with strips of masking tape. No glue required! I love this technique, its a really great way of getting raised 'relief' images quickly and with zero mess!

After making sure all the layers of masking tape were secure, the children started painting their animal. They used their printout as a reference to attain the desired colours.

Everyone had lots of fun and created beautiful artworks!

As always I only manage to get a few photos in whilst teaching so here are some of the finished pieces! Enjoy.

See you next week!

The Cally Road Festival 2011 - Community Art Project

On Sunday 3rd July 2011, me and my team at Artists Resource set up a community art project at the Cally Festival, N1, London.

You can watch the 'making of' video Here:

We got to work making a Giant Octopus! Firstly, we made the structure using wire mesh and stuffed it with newspaper. We made 8 tentacles and attached them to the body using wire.

After that we propped up the Octopus and got to work covering him in plaster bandage. It was so much fun and everyone - children and adults alike - loved smoothing out all the plaster.

After the plaster stage, we then pulled out lots of gorgeous fabrics that had been donated to us from various local charity shops. We cut them into squares of roughly the same shape and painted them onto the sculpture with PVA.

The finished sculpture can be seen in the POP-UP Gallery on Caledonian Road for a week.

Thanks to all the team! We had so much fun with the community. What an amazing making day!