Giacometti Sculptures and Shadow Art

Jarryd’s class joined me in the art room today for a lesson based on Giacometti’s sculptures. The class has been learning about the musculo-skeletal system this term. Jarryd had prepped an art lesson as part of the inquiry and asked me to teach it for today’s lesson.

First of all the students did warm up sketches of stick figures. The students were asked to think about how the body shows emotion through positioning and movement. The students drew stick figures who were running, feeling sad, being kind and feeling happy. They concentrated on the skeleton and how it bends at joints and along the spine to create shape.

We watched a video called 5 Minute Art where a 5 year old boy named Myles took us on a tour of a Giacometti exhibition at the Tate Modern in London. The students discussed the sculptures of Giacometti and decided that the sculptures we made should be tall, thin, skinny, well-balanced and show movement. We then watched another video by an art teacher called Mr Lundgren which taught us a technique to create sculptures in the style of Giacometti. We used pipe cleaners to make the ‘skeletons’ and wrapped tinfoil around tightly to make long, tall sculptures. The students attached their figures to cardboard stands and bent them into their final positions.

It was such a beautiful day outside so once the students finished their sculptures they went outside to make shadow art. They traced around the shadows of their figures to create overlapping, colourful artworks that show movement of the human body. I had a lovely day with Jarryd’s class and I am very proud of how hard the students worked today.