The Year 3 children have been working on their sculpture skills in arts week. They talked about what sculpture is and then they looked at different opportunities to create sculpture using our text, ‘Ocean Meets Sky’ for inspiration. The children took part in different sculpture activities through the week with one centred around sculpting birds from the book.
We began by collating pictures of feathers and studying how the feathers looked. The children then carefully drew their own versions, experimenting with different mediums including chalk, oil pastels, crayons and charcoal. They enjoyed experimenting with the different textures and working out whether chalk and charcoal could blend easily. As the morning progressed, they became more confident with expressing themselves and choosing more vibrant colours.
We then moved onto sculpting the feet from wire. We briefly looked at how complex the claws of birds are before attempting our own. It was quite difficult to manipulate and bend the wire and ensure it was stable enough to support the rest of the bird.
The claws were eventually secure enough to apply. The bodies of the birds were made from foam board; we cut the feathers out and decorated the birds, grouping the colours effectively.
Towards the end, we applied other decorative items and then used tissue paper to finish them off. We think they look realistic and the children should feel really proud of their efforts. This wasn’t an easy task or a simple skill to master, but they kept persevering and showed excellent attention to detail. Well done Year 3!
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