K – 6 Art

I love Alexander Calder! I teach a Calder wire project each year, but I have never successfully made a Calder-inspired mobile. Until now!

I recently received this 1975 edition of Making Things: Hand Book of Creative Discovery, Book 2 by Ann Wiseman. Inside this gloriously illustrated book I found these  instructions for making Calder mobiles:

Making Things Book 2 – Handbook of Creative Discovery by Ann Wiseman. ISBN-10: 0316948519

Easy to follow step by step illustrations for a variety of mobiles

I decided to test it out with items I had on hand in the art room.

Materials for first mobile:

• 18-inch pre-cut Stem Wire (AKA floral wire) 20 gauge
• construction paper
• scissors
• hole punch
• pliers (note: I didn’t have any pliers so I just did this with my hands)
• AND A BALANCING FINGER

Materials for making a simple Calder-inspired mobile

Ms. Wiseman tells us mobiles are built from the bottom up. Aha!

Success! A 4-tier mobile!

Now for my second mobile. I made this mobile using Ann Wiseman’s illustrations and Peel & Stick Foam Sheets.

Calder-inspired mobile made with wire and self-adhesive craft foam.

To add interesting organic shapes, sandwich wires between matching pieces of self-adhesive craft foam.

If you choose to make these multiple tier wire mobiles, try it yourself first, be patient, and expect a lot trial and error. Balancing those wires is tricky and takes practice. I think these projects would be great for middle and high school students.

If you want to try this with a whole class of upper elementary students, I would keep it simple. Stick with one or two wires. Check out this project from Meet the Masters. I like how they have three degrees of difficulty and incorporate a stabile as a base.

Illustration from Meet the Masters website.

Here are some more ideas for Calder mobiles for kids:

• Babble’s fun-foam and wire mobile. Beautiful! Great step-by-step instructions.
• The Princess Artypants blog has a great Calder kinetic sculpture project, including video links.
• Salamander Art has a super fun-foam hanging mobile project that ties in with children’s mystery The Calder Game.

If you love Calder, you might like my previous Calder posts:

• Calder Wire Sculpture
• Calder’s Jewelry
• Calder Wire Portraits
• Calder books to read online for free 

Have you ever made a mobile with your students? 

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Give your name art lesson a twist – literally! Our fifth grade students had a ball sculpting their names in wire.

Materials:

• Blick sculpture wire, 14 gauge, 6 ft. per child
• paper
• marker
• scissors (blunt tip kindergarten scissors are fine)
• optional embellishments: pre-cut 18″ Stem Wire (I use 20- and 26-gauge), colored wire (such as Twisteez), Pony Beads, sequins

Pre-cut floral wire (AKA stem wire) and sculpture wire

Session one:

To practice, give each child a piece of paper, marker and an 18 inch piece of wire. Kids should write their first initial on the paper. They may print or use cursive. They they trace their written letter in wire.

100% of 10- and 11-year-old students could do this by the end of the first 40 minute session.

Session two:

Give each child a piece of paper, marker and a 6 ft. length of sculpture wire. They should write out their first name in marker this time. They may print or use cursive, then trace their name in wire.

Write out name on paper, trace with sculpture wire (teacher example).

Did you notice? I added a single pony bead to dot each lower case ‘i’ and ‘j’.

Approximately 85% of 10 and 11 year olds were able to make their names in wire. I would recommend struggling students create a larger, single initial.

Session three (optional):

Want to take it further? Offer pony beads, sequins, and super-fine wire (I use pre-cut 18 inch 26-gauge stem wire).

Students can string the hanger wire with pony beads. They can clip the excess wire with (kindergarten!!) scissors. They can thread a bead or sequin onto 26-gauge wire and tie a knot around it.

Some students created small sculptures to embellish their name art.

Robby suspended his name from his sculpture.

Milan made a tiny mouse.

Riley perched a peacock on her name art.

How nice these will look on the students’ walls at home!

This would be a nice tie in to an Alexander Calder project. Check out my other Calder wire projects: wire sculpture and wire portraits.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Amazon and Blick Art Materials. I have been using Blick’s 14 gauge sculpture wire for 8 years and I love it!

Olympic volleyball trophies made by fifth graders

Olympic archery

Sumo wrestling is NOT an Olympic event, but it makes for a cool sculpture.

Women’s gymnastics

Student designed the water polo sculpture so it is different on each side: reverse shows player with torso above water.

Want the full lesson plan?  All the details are on my earlier posts: part 1, and part 2.

I just love the Olympics!!!! My favorite summer events are men’s and women’s gymnastics.

Have you ever made an Olympic or sport project with your students?

Arts and Activities Magazine – June 1968

I inherited a treasure trove of old Arts and Activities and School Arts magazines from the 1960s and 1970s.

Plaster sculpture cast in a wax paper milk carton. Inflated balloons create interesting negative space.

The balloons created terrific negative space. It reminded me a bit of Henry Moore’s sculptures. I thought it would be cool to try this out as a Henry Moore sculpture lesson with my art campers. We looked at some images of his work, then got busy.

The campers were able to scrape and shape the damp plaster.

It was a huge mess, of course. But fun! The kids (ages 8-11) really enjoyed the process.

Wow! We had a fantastic group of plaster masks this year.  Here is the entire 2012 collection, fresh from the art show.

Way to go fifth graders!!!! You are all so creative.

Want to make a mask? Check out this post and this post for all the details. Messy but so much fun.