Follow-up: 3D Wire Sculpture

One of my 13-year-old private art students created a wonderful sculpture from pantyhose and a coat hanger and it came out so incredibly cool! I wish I could do this project with ALL of my students! I originally showed this project here while it was in-the-works. These sculptures do take a while to make--she worked on it during a few of our sessions together (a coat of gesso here, a coat or paint there...). But finally, it was done!

She chose to paint her sculpture with a bright red acrylic paint (3 coats) and we finished up with a coat of Mod Podge to add a bit of sheen and seal it up. While the Mod Podge was drying, we used the opportunity to sketch the sculpture from a variety of angles and with a few different types of drawing media.

I brought out the very large newsprint I have and we practiced drawing BIG and loose trying to get the feel of the sculpture and the lines and movement with our sketchy lines. Some children have a hard time with being "sketchy" with their drawing--a few timed drawings (each about 2 minutes) and some vine charcoal usually loosen them up.

We then tried sketching the sculpture from other angles working with charcoals and conté crayons in various shades of grey, black and brownish-reds. Some of the media lent itself to sketchy, loose drawing (vine charcoal and traditional, chalky, pastels), while other media allowed my student to create hard edges. I really stressed that these drawings were just sketches--they needn't be museum-quality--the more you draw, the more you learn.

This was also a wonderful project to discuss value and contrast and perspective (the base of the sculpture needs to "lie flat" in the drawing. This was a great lesson and the results were wonderful! ENJOY!