Weekly wrap up 2/22/19-- Claudel and Great Courses

For art we have been learning about Claudel who lived a pretty sad life and then her family committed her in an asylum where she lived for the next 30 years.  Her work is just now being recognized as one of the great women sculptures of our time.

As always we learn about the artist and review some of their works 

We learned her family committed her at at the age of 40 and her family refused to allow her to be discharge from the hospital despite many people's pleas to do so.  While in the asylum we don't know if she was allowed to do any art or at least no art from that period is known (or that we could find from our resources)! 

For the art projects I wanted the kids to try to do a sculpture.  I found a simple but neat wet floral block sculpture idea on Pinterest that I thought would be fun but still show how hard sculpturing in stone would be (but using a much simpler material for us -- and a lot less expensive)

I found cheap floral rounds and squares at the dollar store and using simple soap carving  patterns the kids tried their hand and making an animal carving.  I made a squirrel as an example

both kids chose to make a pig!  Getting the boys to be careful and not cut too much off at a time proved challenging. 

their end results

Not to bad for them-- if you do this at home this material is very, very soft and was a bit more challenging to us  for our heavy handed boys but it made them realize how a artist  might look at a simple stone or wood piece and make it come alive

Next we tried a block of dry floral brick and encourage the kids to try again.  this time completely cutting out the shape

both boys choose to do the turtle pattern (they had many choices to choose from)

square dry floral foam

carefully cutting out the shape

a turtle before adding the details

adding the finishing touches of the turtle

This was my example


Next we made a more modern sculpture and again I found this on Pinterest (love Pinterest for art ideas)

We took a square wooden block and drilled four hole in it.  Took 2 wire coat hanger and untangle them and added the ends into  the holes (I used super glue to hold the coat hangers ends in the holes.  Next the boys bent the hinges into interesting shapes and cover the whole thing in a knee high stocking.  then we hot glued the stockings to the bottom of the wood block.

Next we used gesso white paint to cover the entire sculpture.    We found 2 layers of gesso paint worked best 

we needed to paint to dry for a week.  Love how the shapes turned out 

The following week the boys painted them

MarioFan went for a solid blue base

while his friend went with an orange base...He was envisaging his sculpture as a sea horse:)

Completed sculptures

My example of a modern sculpture I only use one coat hanger and I  prefer the look the 2 coat hanger gives the sculptures.

A couple weeks ago Great courses had a fantastic online sale.  I have heard a lot about them but their normal prices where a bit too much for me.  However this deal was great and I bought a few courses for MarioFan to do. Two we will work on this year, Spanish and Electronics.  The rest will be added in for next year classes.  I am still going through them but I am excited to give them a try.