Year 7 Virtual School Sculpture Project on Bali Masks

Year 7 students have been completing a sculpture project on Bali Masks. They began at school with an introduction and research activity on Bali masks. Then we continued the project through e-learning by encouraging the students to develop ideas for the project.

We explored the characteristics of Bali masks, creating an infographic online and students conducted research on the medium of Papier-mâché, which literally means "chewed paper", "pulped paper", or "mashed paper". It is a composite material consisting of paper pieces or pulp, sometimes reinforced with textiles, bound with an adhesive, such as glue, starch, or wallpaper paste. The substance has been used since 200 B.C China. Today papier-mâché sculptures are used as an economic building material for a variety of traditional and ceremonial activities, as well as in arts and crafts. We will be using it to sculpt our Bali mask designs when we return to school.

To get the students engaged in actual 3D Art, we set them the following task:

Sculpture, an artistic form in which hard or plastic materials are worked into three-dimensional art objects. The designs may be embodied in freestanding objects, in reliefs on surfaces, or in environments ranging from tableaux to contexts that envelop the spectator. An enormous variety of media may be used, including clay, wax, stone, metal, fabric, glass, wood, plaster, rubber, and random “found” objects. Materials may be carved, modelled, moulded, cast, wrought, welded, sewn, assembled, or otherwise shaped and combined. 

https://www.britannica.com/art/sculpture  

Relief is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane.

Found object is a loan translation from the French objet trouvé, describing art created from undisguised, but often modified, objects or products that are not normally considered materials from which art is made, often because they already have a non-art function.

Activity:

This week we will be exploring the three dimensionality of relief sculpture using found objects. Create a Bali mask out of found objects around the house and submit a photograph on Padlet. Remember to think of the characteristics and features that make up a Bali mask. You can create different compositions and experiment before choosing your final design.

Please see some of the fantastic examples that students created.

Update from Ms. Helen Bramley, Head of Art