Diorama    Collaborative Collage    Sculpture vs. Painting

Diorama: Creating an Environment with Everyday Objects

Materials: Found objects, cardboard boxes, construction paper, magic markers or paint, scissors, pencils and paper.

Activity:

Part 1: Show students Stockholder’s works. Ask them to describe what they see, and to create a list of verbs, adverbs, and adjectives to describe the actions depicted in Stockholder’s works.

Part 2: Ask students to bring in small, ordinary objects to class. Split students into groups of four or five. Give each group a large cardboard box, and ask them to decorate it with construction paper, color it with markers or paint, and incorporate their ordinary objects into the design. Ordinary objects should also be drawn upon, torn, cut or altered.
Discussion: Ask each student to write a short story about their built environment. As them to consider what happens in the space, who inhabits the space, what it is used for, and what will happen next. Ask them to describe what actions occur in their space, using the same types of verbs, adverbs, and adjectives used in their description of Stockholder’s works.

Collaborative Collage: Colors & Shapes

Materials: Construction paper, multi-colored yarn, one big piece of white paper, scissors.

Preparation: Explain to students what primary, secondary, and complementary colors are (see glossary). Show them Jessica Stockholders.

Activity: Divide students into groups of 4-5. Select several shapes such as rectangles, circles, triangles, organic shapes, or numbers or letters. Ask students to make cutout of shapes, using various colors of construction paper. Some shapes will be very large, others will be small, and others will be medium-sized. Put a very large sheet of white paper on the floor. Ask students to take turns, placing shapes on the floor one by one. Also have students use yarn, to represent lines. Students must use all materials. Once they are finished, ask students to glue the paper in place.

Discussion: Have students look at all of the collages, and to describe them. Ask students to compare and contrast they way the same shapes and colors are used in different settings. Ask students to describe the colors used, their relationships to each other, and the relations between the shapes and lines. Ask them to determine where objects are in space in relation to each other.

What is Sculpture? What is Painting?

Reference: Paige Hebert

Materials: Pencils, paper.

Activity: Split the class into small groups of four or five students. As each group to collectively define what sculpture is, and then what a painting is. They can either make a definition or they can list criteria for each type of artwork.

For instance, students may

 ask:

• In order to be a sculpture, what components must and artwork include?
   
• In order to be a painting, what elements must an artwork include?

Discussion: Ask students to read their definitions of sculpture and painting. Show the class Stockholder’s artwork. Discuss the media and whether it can be characterized as sculpture or painting.