Tag Archives: sculpture

Young Artists Club: Alexander Calder

Creativity/Spirituality, , , , , ,

Alexander Calder might have been a lesser known name among our club members, but what a body of work to explore!  Mobiles and wire sculptures and the circus, oh my!

Though we discussed many of the various mediums in which Calder worked, we primarily focused our hands-on time making wire sculptures, stabiles*, and collaborating on a wire circus of our own!  Check them out:

(This wire sculpture got a little out of focus, oops!)
(This wire sculpture got a little out of focus, oops!)

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A stabile!
A stabile!

If you’re interested in learning more about Calder, I found this site particularly good as an overview of his life and work, and this site has a nice photobiography section to look through.

The circus our club members created will be on display during Gifted2Give on November 13th here in Austin!  Come see it in person, and make some holiday gifts while you’re there!

 

*Which was an art term I myself had never heard of!  It was used to describe a period when Calder was making stationary sculptures, as opposed to his period of making mobiles.  It was neat to learn this alongside our club members!

 

Clay Sculptures and Wildflower Prints

Creativity/Spirituality, What We're Making, , , , , ,

Last week Kaye led another spring-filled day of art here in Austin.  🙂  Here’s what our groups made!

Our participants love the tactile nature of working with clay, and really, who doesn’t?  We focused on some classic techniques: pinch pots and coil pots.  Participants could also use the clay and texturing tools in whatever way their imagination led them!

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We also used recycled materials as stamps to create flower prints.  Some of these transformations were:

  • Cut sponges (those were new :-)) became stems for flowers,

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  • paper towel rolls (reinforced with painters tape so they wouldn’t disintegrate!) became leaves, and

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  • single-size soda bottles became flowers.0114047a4ab6e7211e9f5669e36545e6194717a1ed (2)

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The bluebonnet prints were especially fun, as participants got to dab on the blossoms with their fingers.  We used purple for blossoms in shadow, blue for blossoms in sunlight, and light blue for highlights.

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Kaye said the bluebonnet prints could be hung up to dry, but that the soda bottle flowers were best drying flat so the paint didn’t run.

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The drying rack looks like a garden!  Here’s to a spring full of creativity!