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Jean began by showing slides of work by Alexander Calder, the American artist who built mobiles and stabiles, initially out of paper, then large sheets of steel. She also showed slides of some of her students’ projects from previous years. She then asked students to work in teams of two to three to design and build small, 12-inch tabletop models of their sculpture ideas (see photo below).

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

One week was set aside for the design, building and painting stages. The models or “prototypes” that were built during this week became the plan for the next five weeks. Students would have to translate their ideas to large sheets of cardboard, cut, glue and tape them together, and finally paint the full-scale sculpture.

They learned the importance of having a good model to help in anticipating some of the problems to come in full-scale construction. Utility knives and box cutters were used to cut and shape the large pieces of cardboard. Tape was used to hold the joints together, while large amounts of glue were used to hold everything in place. Sometimes it was necessary to glue the work upside-down so it would dry with less tension at the joints. Instruction was given to show how to hide the seams and joints, making the craftsmanship first rate.

Changes from the small model were made as the problems of working full-scale developed. Jean also encouraged the students to make the sculpture look interesting from all points of view. This got the students to really think in three dimensions. Tempera paint and papier-mache were used to finish the surface of the sculpture.

The evaluation of the project includes using a sheet to mark the success of the sculpture in each of the categories of Design, Craftsmanship and Expression. These terms are defined as follows.