January Art a la Carte

Today was Eric's monthly art class, called Art a la Carte. They made figures out of pipe cleaners and aluminum foil and mounted them on wood blocks painted black. Here is Eric posing with his finished product, which is holding a lightsaber. Of course, he is pretending to also be holding a lightsaber and looking very intimidating. :)

They were studying an artist named Alberto Giacometti, who was born in Switzerland in 1901. His father was also an artist, specifically an impressionist painter named Giovanni Giacometti. Alberto was a surrealist sculptor who Mrs. R, Eric's art teacher explained that Surrealism was an "expression of the unconscious", or a "dreamlike idea of what things look like". I had some idea of what Surrealism was, mostly from seeing Salvador Dali's paintings, but it was cool to see the work of surrealist sculptor.

This is Mrs. R's example bulletin board. She modeled the assignment after Giacometti's "walking man" sculpture. I like taking a picture of her example so I can remember what the art is "supposed to" look like.

The kids started off by learning how to sand a block of wood. They had huge gloves with a sort of plastic-coated palm area so their hands would be protected from the wood splinters. It was interesting that even when she told them to use the sandpaper along the grain of the wood, many of the kids still used the sandpaper in any direction they felt like. They used two types of sandpaper, the coarser one first, then the finer one. I might have known that at one time, but certainly didn't remember it.

Next, they painted the wood block with black paint. One little girl got very upset when she got some paint on her shirt. They all got their hands messy, but nothing that baby wipes didn't take care of.

Next, the fashioned a small piece of aluminum foil into a ball (for the head). They wrapped one of the pipe cleaners over and around the ball to make the head and arms. The other pipe cleaner wrapped around the first one to make the legs. They were then supposed to wrap the aluminum foil around the whole thing, squishing it down to make it tight so it didn't fall off. She specifically warned them not to use small pieces of aluminum foil to cover up bare spots, because that small piece would fall off. I helped several kids wrap their figures, and I had to keep reminding them not to use small pieces, but of course, almost all of them did.

After they were done wrapping, they were allowed to make "props" like the lightsaber, soccer balls, or whatever. I helped a couple of them attach their "props" to their figures, again with wrapping long pieces of foil around everything. The teacher then came around and stapled their figures to the wood block.

I think this every month, but I really wish I could follow along in class and make my own art work. I learn so much from this class, and I am also so glad they are flexible enough at work to allow me to take the day off for this class every month!