Scratch Board "Emphasis"

Scratch board is a common art project and can be a challenge for students when trying to create their values in reverse. The subject matter for this particular project was a theme of a random choosing but the image must focus on a type of emphasis such as isolation, location and convergence. I highly recommend using the scratch board and not the scratch paper and the small wire scratch brush tools are great for texture, and implied values

Plaster figures

This project was developed by my student teacher, Joe Poore.

This is a good lesson to use when students have already worked on other sculptural forms like wire, so the armatures are easily created.

Aluminum wire is bend and posed in a position that gives a dynamic sense of movement. We had students draw strips of paper with  an "action word" printed on them, this eliminates a class full of similar poses and challenge a student to pose a figure in something non traditional like "sneak" or "slap".

Sneaky Santa

Aluminum foil is then wrapped around the wire in large segments. aluminum is light and adds volume to the wire frame. Plaster mesh strips are cut into small segments and put around the foil. The plaster strips should be smoothed out when wet to eliminated the mesh look and it also helps it adhere to the foil.

Make sure you have students build some sort of platform for the legs. Balance will be an issue because the aluminum is lightweight but the plaster adds significant to it and if it was balanced at the foil stage, it may not be balanced at the plaster stage. Finished pieces can be painted with any kind of paint, we used acrylic.

Some works really fit together well as a collection, ans this was one of them.