Low Relief Cardboard Bird Creations

 

This is a very cool cardboard bird project inspired by the cardboard 'pigeon series' by American contemporary artist Cheryl Cochran @cardboardsea. You can see her work on her Instagram. She uses found cardboard pieces and paint to create cardboard forms, often pigeons, with startling personality and humor. Her style plays with texture and loose brushstrokes.

This lesson was taught by one of my recent student teachers. It turned out very successfully!

Students first looked at her work on her Instagram and discussed low relief.

Then, they used laptops to look up bird images. They sketched these out onto scrap carboard, making all the body parts separate shapes.

Then they cut everything out and roughly assembled it to make sure it looked good and complete. 

All the pieces were painted using tempera paint.

Let dry until the next class.

Then assemble all the pieces using white glue. Students can then use coloured pencils, crayons, oil pastels, etc, to make random texture marks or details on top. 

I love how fun and quirky many of these turned out!

Klimt Gold Patterns Collage with Gold Pen

This is a line and pattern project based on the work of Austrian artist Gustav Klimt. He is one of my favourite artists and I love teaching this lesson. 

I start off by showing a slideshow of Klimt's works and we discuss his use of gold and patterns. 

Here's a good video about this work you can show your students. 

I've posted all the specific steps previously HERE.

Start with a magazine image (preferable) of a figure with some skin showing. Cut it out.

Trace around the figure on black paper (8 x 10") then cut away the clothing. Glue down the flesh parts with a glue stick. Using a pencil, sketch out the patterns. Clothing should be intricate and detailed and the background bolder or simpler for contrast. 

We used a variety of gel pens (Pentel and Uniball are very good brands).

 

I also had these gold flakes that I bought from Dollarama a few years ago. Kids LOVE these. Unfortunately, I haven't seen them in stores for a few years. 

Fill in all the patterns with the gold gel pens.

Some finished Grade 10-12 artworks: