artist study Alexander Calder

We have been doing Meet the Master for the last three years and on average complete about 6 artists a school year.  The next artist that we learned about was Alex Calder who is best know for his static and dynamic mobiles.  They can be found throughout the United states and are usually constructed with metal and are quite colorful.  Our task this week was to construct a dynamic mobile of our own which was quite fun and just a little challenging.

First we had to construct a 3 sided base from which our mobile would stand

Next the kids cut our free flowing shapes from colorful card stock

We used 22 gauge wiring to be our base of the dynamic mobile, if I was to do this again I would choose slight thicker wire next time as this one was quite floppy to work with and we did struggle to keep the center wire upright while balancing the end pieces.

MarioFan's creation

Firedrake's creation

Mine creation--I always do an example before the kids complete their pieces to help give a visual.

This was a great and simple art work but it also went over the concept of balancing and the kids really had to work on figuring out where the center point was for each piece in order to make the mobile look right.  They now are proudly displaying on top of our book cases in our school room.