For a bit of a change, we started our 3-D Design Class with paper sculpture, drawing on the works of Canadian paper artist Calvin Nicholls and Japanese American paper artist, Jeff Nishinaka. The students were quite impressed and went to work. They were instructed on exacto knife safety and some scoring and folding techniques, but they were free to use any method of constructing or deconstructing the paper to form their sculpture. We used white tagboard and white glue. On some the the more heavily folded structures we needed to use heavier glues such as wood glue and hot glue.
This was an inherited class and prior to this year, the class was called "Ceramics". The students were instructed in various clay construction methods and were required to complete 13 projects. The previous teacher prided himself in developing a self-running class. After a few years of teaching to this curriculum, I noticed that after about project number five, the quality started to diminish. I suggested that we change the name to 3-D Design, Sculpture and Ceramics, hoping to introduce other media and techniques to the students.
I am quite pleased with this first project! Some of the students certainly went above and beyond. They were supposed to observe an actual flower or animal for this study. Some did. Others did not. The posted results were among the better ones. I thought I also uploaded a cool toucan, but I think he flew away.
