This lesson is part of a series of classwork for an intro-level art course, called Artivism, for Seniors. The activism-based art course focuses on social justice and social action.  Students have learned to experiment with various materials pulled from the four media hubs in the classroom in the mixed media project. The media hubs include painting, drawing, paper arts, and 3D materials. They also have been working with the 7 elements of art: line, shape, form, color, value, space, and texture. 

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This is the last lesson of the unit and will provide them with an introduction to 3-D Media / Sculpture. Not all students in this course have completed an art foundations course, and thus we will treat this lesson with that in mind to address any gaps in art vocabulary and technique. Students will need to be introduced to the safety and proper use of the following materials, acrylic paints and plaster of paris gauze strips, either of which they have not used in this class.

 

In the few art classes I took during high school, I never got a chance to use plaster gauze and learn how to create a cast. I always wanted to, after having seen the different casts a student in a higher level art course had produced to conceptualize the female body. Using plaster of paris gauze strips in small portions is relatively safe and a great tool for an introduction to sculpture. Our hands are representative of our own identities in so many ways. We use them to speak, share, and help in unique ways. We create art and we use writing to express our thoughts and ideas. I thought that creating a cast of one’s hand could be incorporated into the idea that our hands belong to us as individuals, yet we also use them in contributing to the communities we belong to.