Newspaper Sculpture Week One

In addition to my own artwork I teach art residencies in schools around Sacramento. I am currently working at Edward Kemble Elementary School. Unfortunately funding is hard to come by and as a result I work on a spare budget. The students really enjoy sculpture but the cost of materials is usually prohibitive. Fortunately newspaper is a cheap and versatile material that works well for paper sculpture. This week the 3rd graders started working on a 3D project that will tie into what they are learning in math. Today we rolled the newspaper into sturdy tubes. At first there was a lot of "I can't do this, it's too hard!" comments but eventually everyone was making tubes and competing to see who could make the most and who could make the tightest tubes. It was nice to see many of the kids work together and try to help those who were having a tough time getting the technique figured out. Some even shared with those who weren't able to make as many. As a teacher I always hope for a fabulous finished product but sometimes seeing kids get excited about something as simple as rolling paper into tubes and helping each other is the most rewarding part of this gig.

Next week the students will use the tubes to create abstract, geometric sculptures. They can choose to create something on their own or team up and make a larger, collaborative sculpture.