Wire & Plaster Wrap Gesture Sculptures

Students will use Alberto Giacometti's art style as inspiration to create a scene of 2-5 wire and plaster wrap figures engaged in a scene illustrating, either Cooperation or Conflict

Objectives:

Students will create a sculpture inspired by artist Alberto Giacometti and his unique style of elongated figures
Students will work with the art material plaster wrap, in the additive method
Students will work with human proportions and the use of exaggeration/emphasis
Students will work with the theme "Cooperation vs. Conflict"
Students will work with the Principle of Design: Movement

Materials:

Metal wire (steel, aluminum or copper, as long as it is bendable)
Painters masking tape
plaster gauze rolls (small)
Acrylic paint- Bronze, silver, gold, brown and green, depending on what color you want)
some cloth to rub out the paint
Little cardboard boxes or small blocks of wood for the pedestals

Tools:

bending pliers
cutting pliers
scissors
washing-up bowl to wet the plaster in
old papers or place-mats to keep your workbench clean
brushes

Inspiration Artist: Alberto Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti was a sculptor, painter, and printmaker born in Switzerland in 1901. His father was a painter who encouraged his son’s interest in sculpture. Alberto traveled to Paris to study art, and lived much of his life there in close contact with many other artist friends.

He began painting, drawing, and sculpting from a very early age and explored many art forms throughout his life.

Giacometti is most famous for his tall, thin figures made of bronze. See his work HERE

He preferred to use models he knew, such as his brother Diego, his wife or friends. With his most known works, Giacometti whittled his subjects down to heavily worked but stick-thin figures. He once said “Diego has posed ten thousand times for me. When he poses I don’t recognise him. […] When my wife poses for me, after three days she doesn’t look like herself. I simply don’t recognise her.”

Deeper Thinking Questions

How could you use exaggeration, elongation, or texture in your own sculpture to communicate a specific emotion or idea?
If you were to place one of your sculptures in a public space like Giacometti’s figures, how would scale, placement, and surface treatment change the viewer’s experience?
What armature or construction challenges would you expect when trying to translate Giacometti’s thin, textured forms into wire and plaster? How would you solve them?

Project Steps

Step 1: Gesture Drawing Practice -

Divide your paper into six sections
Ready for some quick drawing?
- Take a pen or pencil and in one of the sections draw a stick-figure person running. Think about how your elbows and knees bend when you run, and try and capture that in your sketch. You only have 20 seconds to draw it, so be quick.
- In the next rectangle draw a stick-figure of a person who is feeling sad. Think about how the body feels/looks when someone is sad. But again you only have 20 seconds to draw it, so be quick!
- In your third rectangle, draw a stick-figure who is comforting the one who is feeling sad. How does your body look when you are being kind to someone else? 20 seconds, go.
- In your fourth rectangle, draw a stick-figure who just won the lottery. How does someone look when they are super happy and excited? 20 seconds to draw – go!
- In your fifth rectangle, draw a stick-figure of someone locked in a sword fight or an epic dance-off. How does that look? 20 seconds...be quick – draw!
- And then in your final rectangle, you have 20 seconds to draw someone doing anything you like. Your parent/ sibling/ friend/ classmate is going to try and guess what your figure is doing, so try and draw your stick-figure in a way that shows it clearly. Ready? 20 seconds…go!
- Can your partner guess what your figure is doing?
- Think about how the simplest of stick-figures can convey strong emotions such as sadness and happiness, and how a few simple lines, drawn in just 20 seconds, can show movement and action.

3. Take a photo and submit this work to Google Classroom for a grade.

Inspiration Artworks

Step 2: Planning-

Take a look at the inspiration art above - note the interaction between figures.
Write out 10 different interactions/actions of your own. These need to be where 2-5 people are interacting together...think about "Cooperation or Conflict"
Now pick 3 of those and draw them out
Now choose/come up with the interaction you like best and that you would like to use for your personal artwork - then come up with 2 different ways to do the scene.
DRAW out your ideas completely.
- Work with the idea of exaggeration or emphasis to alter the way your figure's bodies look.

6. Take a photo of our work and submit it to Google Classroom for a grade.

Exaggeration is the representation of something as more extreme or dramatic than it really is.

Step 3: Reference Photos

After you have completed your plan, you will need to take reference photos of each figure in your scene.

You can use your classmates or take some at home.

If you come to school tomorrow with no photos, you will take them here with classmates anyways.

Once you have reference photos of each figure from at least 2 angles, submit all of them to Google Classroom for a grade.

Step 4: Wire Practice

Familiarize yourself with how to work with wire. Mrs. Lusk will give a demo in class, and there are some helpful videos below, you can check out.

Complete the 4 'Wire Joining Techniques' to the right, and then get them checked off by Mrs. Lusk for a grade.

Wire Joining Techniques-

U Channel - 00:06
Coiling- 01:20
Two Wire Twist - 02:12
Interlock - 02:52

Wire Joining Techniques

Introduction to Wire Sculpture

Step 5: Wire Armature Construction

First -

Using your sketch and reference photos, you will construct your wire armature figures.
Your final figures should be around 10" - 16" tall (use a ruler)
Once you have completed your armatures, you will add newspaper, foil & tape to create the actual body of the figure. Bare wire is fine to leave in places you want really thin.

Second -

At this point, you will want to mount your figures to a base.

This can be a scrap wood piece, cardboard or something else you may think of.

Third -

Once you have your figures how you want, you will add plaster gauze to your figure, anywhere you added newspaper or foil. Be careful not to soak the newspaper; you do not want mold inside your sculpture!
You can also add plaster anywhere else you would like, including any props or environmental items you want to add to the scene.

This is the normal proportions of an average male. Remember that you are working with exaggeration and emphasis!

Student Examples

Step 5: Finishing

Once you have applied plaster gauze and allowed it to dry completely, you will finish your work.
You may use:
- - Acrylic paint applied and then wiped off, to look like metal
  - Metallic Spray Paint
  - Watercolor
  - Normal acrylic paint techniques
  - Have another idea?
You may also add mixed media or extra props made of plaster gauze and wire to enhance your scene.

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