Paper sculptures with printmaking

This week I am doing a camp focused completely on sculpture work through the North Vancouver Community Arts Council.  I am very excited since I usually only do one sculpture project during a week camp and with a WHOLE WEEK of sculpture projects, I get to try a lot of things I just haven't had time to do before.

One of the challenges I set for myself was how to introduce other elements into the sculpture work to add not only variety in the week but also the opportunity for the students to learn some other things too.  I also wanted to show all the different ways the students could create a sculpture work, out of items they might not of considered before.

Like paper!

A flat piece of paper is not necessarily something 6, 7, and 8 year olds would think to go to with creating a 3D work!  Yet card stock and a pair of scissors is something that would be readily accessible to them in their daily lives.

At first I planned to have them use oil pastels on the paper, but printmaking is one of the activities I have found is the most popular at camp and so thought I would take the opportunity to add relief prints to the project.

8 year old

In hindsight, I think monoprints would of been a better choice but in the end the students were very happy with the result.  However it was a bit confusing for them at first since they had to think of a relief print for not only the front of their work but also what it would look like from the back AND create a relief for the stand also....both sides.

For all of them this was the first time they have had to think of a drawing from not only the front, but the back also...quite a surprise at first and a good lesson in working out all perspectives of an idea.  Something they do when working in clay naturally so they don't have to give any real thought too.

cat, 8 year old

I gave them free range on what they picked as a subject.  I showed them the 3 parts they would have to cut and that the stand could be anything associated with their main idea, but they would need 2 of them.

Raccoon, 7 year old

And so stands were created that were legs and waves!!

Mermaid, 6 year old

How about this stylin' mermaid?  With her hair covering one eye!  Even though we pulled a couple of practice prints, this student did not "massage" her plate on the paper with quite enough pressure on the front.  However when she got to the back....

She corrected herself brilliantly.  On top of that, I think she did a great job working out what the back of her mermaid would look like, right down to the bathing suit tied together!  In the future, I think a great project idea might be to have students think of a subject and then tell them to draw it from behind.

Cat, 7 year old

The students also had their choice of a wide array of colors and surprisingly most of them picked black.  I wasn't expecting that to be the popular color choice.  I love that the above student made a decision to create a patterned design for her detail work on her cat.

I love how many different options I have as a teacher with this project and will definitely be introducing it again in the future using not only printmaking but pastels, paints, or watercolor.  As long as you have a heavy stock paper and a pair of scissors, the sky is the limit.