Lesson video

Hello, everyone, my name is Mrs. Tong, and I'm an artist and a teacher, and I'm going to be working with you on a series of five sculpture lessons.

I'm really excited about these lessons.

We're going to use colour in our sculptures too, which I always try to do.

I think it makes them really exciting.

And today's lesson, we're going to be shape detectives first of all, and look at some sculptures, and find as many shapes as we can.

We're then going to use those for design.

I really hope you're going to enjoy the lesson.

Let's get started.

For this lesson, you will need, paper, scissors, glue, and some colouring materials, felt tips or pencil crayons.

Whatever you have at home will be absolutely fine.

If you have other colouring materials.

That's also okay to use those.

So, in this lesson, we're going to be exploring what sculpture means.

We'll also look at a selection of sculptures and think about how they were made.

We're going to be using some artwork as a starting point for our own sculptures.

And we'll find and draw shapes that we'll use for our own sculpted design later on.

I have some star words today.

Will you say them with me? Sculpture.

Three dimensional.

Now, I wonder what three dimensional means.

Well, a piece of paper, generally, we say is two dimensional.

It's very flat.

But we're three dimensional, because we have a front and a back like the piece of paper, but we also have sides, so can you can see all around us.

With the piece of paper as an example, we can really only see the front and the back, can't we? We can't see the sides.

So, I'm three dimensional, and so are you.

And sculpture is a type of art form that is three dimensional.

Assemblage.

Assemblage is a type of sculpture.

It means that it's been assembled, or put together, or built.

So it might have different materials or the same material, but lots of pieces assembled or put together.

Relief.

A relief piece of sculpture means that, generally, it's hung on the wall or it's fairly flat on the floor, but not.

It's not two dimensional.

it still has three dimensions, but it's just not an object in a space.

When we have an object in a space like that, standing in a space, we would call it free-standing.

So free-standing sculpture means it's standing in a space, whether it's indoors or outdoors, and you can see all around it.

With a relief sculpture, you probably won't be able to see the back of it, because it will be pointing out or up from the floor.

So I'm wondering, what do you think sculpture is? I have some examples here for you to look at.

I had a lot of fun finding them, and I chose them because they all had quite a lot of colour in them.

Now colour is going to be really important for our sculpture work later on, and we're going to be using colour today as well.

Have a good look at the sculptures on the screen.

They're all very different, aren't they? All of them are outdoors actually, but sculpture can be found anywhere, in galleries, in buildings, even on buildings, like some of these pictures, and also in outdoor spaces.

Maybe just in a street or a shopping centre or, also, you might find that you've been to a special place where they show outdoor sculpture work, like a sculpture park.

Now, you might call sculptures models or statues, and some of them are, but they're also sculptures.

So sculpture means a type of art that is three dimensional.

It covers an enormous range of shapes and sizes too.

I wonder which of these images is your favourite.

I found it really hard to choose a favourite, but I do love the image of the red sculpture.

I wonder what it's made of.

We're going to have a look at what sculptures are made of in a little while.

While we're still thinking about what sculpture can be, I've chosen these four images to show you.

I've chosen them specifically because, in some way, they are all assembled.

They are assemblages.

I've chosen assemblages because that will be the type of sculpture that we're going to make when we come to make our own.

I wonder which is your favourite this time.

Is it? I love the one that looks a bit like a spaceship or almost like a fairground ride with the three tripod legs.

Can you see it? I also love the colours that are used in the one on the right, the one that looks like it's made from stones.

I'm not sure if it is or not.

I think it might be a material that's been put together.

Maybe you prefer a sculpture that looks like something realistic, like the lion or the cat.

Let's think about how these sculptures on the screen were made.

Sculpture can be made in so many different ways.

I've only chosen some of them today.

The words I've chosen down the screen are modelled, carved, assembled, and joined using welding or welded metal.

That means that two pieces of metal are put together.

And in between, in the join, there is liquid metal.

It's made very very hot so that it's like a liquid, and it acts like a special, almost like a special metal glue between the two pieces to hold them together very tightly.

So if you've been on playground equipment that's made of metal, that's often welded together, or even something like a bridge will be welded together.

Okay, let's have a look at the words together again.

Can you read the first one with me? Modelled.

Which one of those sculptures do you think was modelled? It's quite a tricky question.

That's right.

If you guessed, the one on the bottom left with the colours, you'd be correct.

That one is modelled.

So that means it's made from a softer material that can be changed with hands and tools, until it's the correct shape.

And when the sculptor, the artist, is happy, then they might make their shape into a more permanent material, but it starts off with modelling.

By the way, when I use the word materials when I'm talking about sculpture, it means what the sculptures are made off.

So materials could be wood, or fabric, or metal, or cardboard, all sorts of different types of stuff that's used to make the sculptures.

The next word is carved.

Which of these sculptures on the screen is carved? That means taking generally a hammer and a chisel tool and knocking away some of the material to reveal the shape.

That's right.

It's the one that looks a bit like a dragon's head.

I think this is found on the side of a building.

Have you ever seen this type of sculpture on the side of maybe a church or a very big special building in a city? The next word is assembled.

Now I gave you a clue in the previous slide, of which one of these images that's left is assembled.

Which one has had lots of pieces joined together? That's right, it's the giant lion, isn't it? I think that this sculpture is really big.

Okay, so the final one must be joined with welded metal.

So the metal is made very hot.

Have a careful look at the image.

Do you agree? Yes, it's been welded or joined by making the metal very hot.

Okay, we're going to look at some shapes in some sculptures now.

What different shapes can you spot in these artworks? Again, you can tell that I've chosen ones with lots of colour in them, can't you? Again, I've chosen sculptures that have colour in them because we're going to use colour later on.

I can see triangles and I can see rectangles.

I can also see some sort of more curvy blobby shapes.

I can see two circles in one of them.

Can you see them? That's right, it's the one at the bottom, isn't it? The one with the two holes in it.

Actually, the circles are part of the sculpture, but they're actually holes, aren't they? So it's where the sculpture isn't, which I think is quite fun.

Okay.

I'd like you to pause the video after having a careful look at the shapes in the sculptures on the previous slide, the one we've just looked at.

Draw some of the shapes that you can see in the sculptures.

You may need to go back to the slide and pause it there.

Ready sculptors? off you go.

What shapes did you find? Can you hold them up to the camera so that I can see them? Fantastic.

You found a lot.

Some of you found more than me.

Brilliant work, sculptors.

Well, we need to start to look for shapes and think about the shapes that we might use for our own sculpture.

So we need to be shaped detectives really.

Okay.

I found some of the shapes on the screen.

So I found lots of triangles and red curves in the red-orange sculpture at the top.

Can you see them? In the sculpture at the bottom on the left with the holes, I found circles.

And inside the circles, I found a kind of semi-circle, like a bridge shape that I put on the screen.

I also found a similar shape in the curves on the red one too.

And then looking at the shapes that I found in the sculpture with all the different shapes stuck together, a bit like totem poles, aren't they? I found lots and lots of different shapes there.

Can you spot where they are in the sculptures? Good job.

Okay, you have another task now.

So step one is colour your shapes and cut them out.

You can use each of your shapes more than once.

So if you've seen one triangle in the sculptures and you've only drawn it once, you can now draw lots of triangles if you like that shape.

So choose your favourite shapes, and you can draw large versions of them and smaller versions of them.

We're going to need lots of shapes for our design work today.

So choose lots of them and colour them in, and then cut them out.

I have a little piece of video now to show you about how I coloured my shapes.

Okay, so I've drawn out my shapes with a pencil, and I've started to colour mine in.

I'm just going to show you what I was doing.

So I've chosen, first of all, some of the red shapes that I can see in the big red sculpture.

And I'm going to colour these using felt tips and pencil crayons, all the things I've got here.

And I'm going to colour the shapes that I see from each sculpture, and I'm kind of trying to stick to the colours that I see in the sculpture where the shapes come from.

So this one is lots of red and orange as well.

I can see some orange perhaps where the sun is hitting the surface of the sculpture, but I rather like that orange, so I'm going to add some orange along with the red here to make that nice and bright.

Now, you can go over them with felt tips, or pencil crayons, or both if you want to.

That's absolutely fine.

You can use whatever colouring equipment you have at home.

Okay, so I'll finish that one off later and I want to show you this blue and green one that I'm going to plan here.

So I've drawn this shape here, which will be green, from the sculpture that looks a bit like a totem pole, on the right-hand side of the screen.

And I have also found this blue shape, which has some curves in it, but also some quite strong angles.

It's quite a jiggety jaggedy shape.

So can you see I've coloured it to make it look a bit more exciting and bit more related to the shape with lots of zigzaggy blues? And then as I say, I would like this one to be green.

So I'm going to colour the outline of that shape green.

You can take lots of care over colouring yours.

And because it looks like a piece of stone or some other material, I'm not quite sure what it's made of, I'm going to make it look like it has a texture on its surface.

So I'm going to do some different types of marks.

I've got some straight lines here, and I'm going to have some curved wiggly lines on this one.

And I think I'm going to add some yellow to this to make it a lighter green.

So you need to colour your shapes, and now cut them out.

Okay, step two of your task is to arrange your shapes to create a design that you're happy with.

Keep moving them around until you feel like your design looks good for how you want it to be.

Even if we use exactly the same shapes, coloured in exactly the same way, our final designs would look quite different, because we all make different choices, and we all have different favourites and preferences.

So move your shapes around a lot, until you feel happy with your design.

Remember, you don't have to use all of your shapes either.

Okay, so I have all of my shapes now, and I'm going to arrange them into a design that I really like the look of.

So I'm going to start with some of these larger pieces of green.

I really, really enjoyed making all the bright colours.

I like the way this little bit kind of hangs off the edge there.

And I like this angle here being similar to this one, so I'm going to make that parallel there.

So, you just need to arrange your shapes.

They can be arranged in any way that you like, so that you feel happy with your design.

You can lay them on top of each other or put them next to each other.

And also, you don't have to use them all.

I'm not quite sure if I will use all of my pieces.

I think I quite like that one like that.

I've got this pink that I really want to use.

I'm not quite sure about the shape and where it might go.

Perhaps it might go on top of this green one, and then the yellow.

I rather like those three colours together, so I'm going to put them together like that.

And I've got some spare bits that I won't use now.

So I'm going to keep that as, I think, my final design for now.

The interesting thing is that we take ideas from other people's artwork too, don't we? Because we've looked at the shapes in other people's artwork today.

So, please pause the video, and your task is to arrange your shapes to create a design that you feel happy with.

Well, this was my final arrangement of shapes.

What do you think? It took me a long time to arrange them all, and I did really like my final arrangement.

My favourite part, I have to say, is the blue part with the zigzag lines that sticks up on the right.

I really like that blue, and I enjoyed putting the pink parts against the green because the colours really stood out against each other.

Okay, sculptors, your sketchbook task for today is to stick down your shapes once you're happy with that final design.

Stick them into your sketchbook if you have one.

But if you don't, use a new piece of paper to present your final design.

Pause the video while you paste down your arrangement.

Well done.

Let's have a quick recap.

What new words did we learn today? Well, we talked about some sculptures being three dimensional, didn't we? You may have heard that before though, or you may just have heard 3D.

It means the same.

I'm sure that you've definitely learned a new word, which is assemblage.

Can you remember what that meant? That's right.

It's pieces of sculpture materials that are joined together, isn't it? What do you think of your final piece of work today, your final arrangement of shapes? It looks like we're all starting to get a design idea for our sculptures now.

And in the next set of lessons, we're going to be creating our sculpture.

We're going to learn how to assemble our pieces together.

We're going to make a sculpture, and we're going to add colour to it.

So, your design today is really important part of that process.

I wonder if you'd like to change anything about it.

While I'm making my art, I'm constantly changing my mind.

And just when I think sometimes that I'm happy with it, I changed my mind again.

So, if you look at your design and you think that you'd like to add something, or even take something away, or move a shape, then do that in your sketchbook.

That's exactly the right place to do it.

If you'd like to share your design work today with Oak National, the details are on this screen.

But do remember that you must ask permission from a parent or carer before you upload any work.

I have really enjoyed making design for sculpture with you today.

I can't wait to continue to be sculptors with you.

Designing a piece of sculpture is such an important part of the process, and all sculptors do it.

Choosing shapes and moving them around is a lovely, simple way to do that.

It's a fun way too, isn't it? I had lots of fun in the lesson today, sculptors.

Thank you very much for joining me, and I really hope you'll join me for the next lessons.

We've got four more together, and we're going to be making our sculpture and adding colour to it.

Do join me.

I'll see you again.

Buh-bye.