What's Going on in the Classroom: Metal and Wire Projects

Hey all, just a quick peak as we finish up our metal pendants and begin wire sculptures. I posted here about the start of our metal pendents. Students used an acetylene torch and solder to connect one or more pieces of metal and did a ton of filing, sanding, and polishing to create some pretty cool pendants, here are just some of the results.

Now that most students are done with their pendant project, we are moving on to wire sculptures. Since this is a foundations course, some of these students are experiencing sculpture for the first time since elementary school. So we have a nice long talk about 3-D vs. 2-D, building an armature and then building up mass. Students had to select an animal, draw a contour line drawing of it, form an outline out of wire and then building up the mass of the sculpture using wire. These projects are in the works but here are a couple to show you how we've been starting out.

What's Going on in the Classroom: Jewelry Making!

So my little foundations kids are all grown up and making jewelry! They are making a metal pendent where they are required to practice their skills in sawing with a jeweler's saw, solder with an acetylene torch, use files, and polishing using tripoli and rouge! We started with paper models that students rubber cemented onto the metal of their choice. Now we've been doing lots and lots of sawing and filing. I pretty much have a continual headache from all the noise. But we should be done soon, my hope is the first group of students will be ready to solder tomorrow or Thursday! For now take a look at some of our projects as we start...

Also, students in my foundations class turn in two sketchbook assignments a quarter. This last one, had some particularly cool results. Their assignment was to illustrate their favorite (school-appropriate) song lyrics. Below are some awesome examples of the interesting work students completed.