4th Grade Goes Green with Recycled Newspaper Sculptures

In recognition of Earth Day 2011, 4th graders recycled newspaper into beautiful works of art. They learned about the local artist, Diane Sikes who transforms recycled books into magnificent sculptures. They also learned about the Senegalese artist, Mamadou Tall Diedhio, who makes bird sculptures out of old cell phones. 

After seeing the artworks of these two artists, fourth graders were excited about getting to work on their own projects. Below are a few snapshots from class. Be sure and stop by the glass case upstairs to see more examples of these sculptures! 

Trees in 3-D

Last week, Kindergarten students created Fall tree collages on paper. This week, they took their study of trees a step further by creating these fabulous tree sculptures. They learned that a sculpture is an artwork that has a top, bottom and two sides. You can walk around a sculpture and see it from many different viewpoints. A person who makes a sculpture is called a sculptor. 

Students sculpted their trees by twisting and turning brown paper bags. They added leaves using tissue paper and glue.

A Completed Tree

Animals Giacometti Style

Kids are always trying to get away with drawing stick figures in art class. Normally, I send them back to their drawing pads to add some fat to those bony figures; however, when It's time to learn about the artist Alberto Giacometti, they get to go stick figure crazy!



The novelty of foil makes this a fun project for second graders and it is fast too...we finish in one class.

First I show them these Giacometti sculptures of a cat and a dog:




Many of my students are lucky enough to have been to the Nasher Sculpture Center and some quickly recognize Giacometti's artwork. So, we usually spend some time talking about their personal experience with the work. I ask them why they think Giacometti made his sculptures so skinny. I get answers like "...because they balance better that way..." or "...because they are starving..." or "...because he was trying to be creative..." It's always interesting to me to hear their ideas.

Finally, after all of that talk the fun begins! I pass out the foil (after a quick demo on how to shape the head and body) and they get busy. I place images of animals on all of the tables for them to get ideas from. The most important thing is that they DO NOT tear the foil. It must stay in one piece for this to work. Usually, I pass out a little extra for them to use for legs.

...and here are some student examples:

a dog


foil animal stand off



Texas Longhorn


a cat