So I teach art in southern Indiana. My kids don't get a lot of exposure to original contemporary art from world famous artists. However, they do visit the Indianapolis Children's Museum when they are in 3rd grade which is home to this awesome Dale Chihuly sculpture.
So yay, built in background knowledge! I have been wanting to do a Chiluly inspired project for a while. I had been scouring the internet for ideas, but had a few problems with most of the things I saw. Either the projects would take forever, the process didn't really teach the kids anything about Chihuly and his process, the projects were too expensive (sharpies are pricey, friends) or they required melting plastic bottles. I am kind of a fume-o-phobe. So... onward, right?
I found the two projects below. I really like the translucency of the one on the right, but feared it would be too difficult for 4th graders, and the process didn't really have any similarities to glass blowing. The one on the left is super cool, and totally do-able, but I wanted it a bit more transparent and glass like. It does allow the kids to experience Chihuly's process of arranging the glass parts, however.
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| Carter Lawrence Elementary |
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| All Things Paper |
So.. experiment! I took balloons, blew them up. and covered them with 3-4 layers of colored tissue paper and Modge-Podge. I removed the balloon from the paper after it had dried, and voila I ended up with some cool translucent globes. I liked this process because the kids can blow up the balloons and mimic the process of glass blowing a bit. After the kids had made their tissue paper balloon, I gave them a few options of how to cut them:
Some kids ended up with more than one shape. They used hot glue to layer and attach their Chihuly inspired form to a piece of floral wire. They looked like this.
So, now I had to build a structure that the kids could attach their forms to so we could turn it into a finished sculpture. This is where things got hairy. Turns out, I am not an engineer. I tried to be fancy. I didn't want our sculpture to be totally vertical. I wanted it to have a curve to it. This was a bad choice, just make yours straight.
Never-the-less, I used a piece flexible electrical conduit to try to create the curve. This lead to lots of problems getting the sculpture to stand up. I threaded the conduit through a cardboard core from the fabric store, attaching it all to an upside down flower pot. I thought I was being super-smart with the flower pot. "All the weight, it will hold it up," I thought. Nope- not heavy enough, and not wide enough. In the picture here I have our lovely sculpture tied to a chair so it won't fall over.
The sculpture stayed there for about 2 months over Christmas break. until I had an epiphany. CHRISTMAS TREE STAND!
I broke the flower pot off and stuck the cardboard tube into the stand. That is what is holding the thing up now. On the bright-side, by the time I had my little brainstorm, it was ooh- January 10th, so said stand was about $1.00.
I covered that sucker up with some butcher paper. I think it turned out pretty cool. We shall see if it is still standing up when I go to school on Tuesday.
