Slideshow Overview of My Earl Warren Elementary Student's Artwork 2012

Here's a slideshow overview of the projects my Earl Warren Elementary School students just finished.  Each classroom received 4 lessons.  The classes ranged from Kindergarten to Sixth grade.  Take a few minutes and check it out.  They did some awesome work.  I am so proud of them!

Newspaper Sculpture Week Two

Week two of newspaper sculpting. With their bundles of tubes rolled and ready to go the students got busy figuring out how to turn them into geometric forms. Some stuck to the basics creating cubes and pyramids. Others were a bit more adventurous tapping into their inner engineer designing houses, chairs and robots. And then there were the students who, though still unsure what to make or how to make it, thoroughly enjoyed cutting and taping while they waited for their work of art to emerge.

 One more week to go. Hopefully the newspaper lasts.

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.