Sample work Creative Arts K–6 Stage 2: Visual Arts: Insects - 3D Sculptures

Description of activity

Students create a 3-dimensional sculpture of an insect.

1. Students examine 3-dimensional toys, creatures and sculptures, investigating how they are constructed. Examples could include artists Louise Bourgeois (spiders), Lin Onus (bats), John Davis (fish), Panamerenko (extinct hybrid creatures), and examples from popular science-fiction movies.
2. Students create a creature based on their drawings. They use thick malleable wire to outline the basic form or shape of the insect and its main structural components. When they are happy with the overall shape, they can wind cling wrap and/or stretch an old stocking over the wire frame.
3. Students stuff stockings/clean fabric rags into the main wire structure to develop parts of the insect such as tails, wings, ears and antennae.
4. Surface decoration and other body parts are added using a range of available materials such as fabric paint, scrap textiles, extra wire, beads, sequins and natural objects, eg leaves and twigs.
5. Students consider their insect sculpture from different angles or viewpoints and refine or rework any sections.
6. They select the most effective location for their sculpture, eg suspended from the ceiling, attached to a tree, on a shelf or as a floor piece. They can name or classify their insect and identify where it lives, what it eats, how it moves, and its impact as a sculpture on other people.

Outcomes

Making (VAS2.1)
Represents the qualities of experiences and things that are interesting or beautiful by choosing amongst aspects of subject matter.
Making (VAS2.2)
Uses the forms to suggest the qualities of subject matter.

Criteria for assessing learning

Students will be assessed on their:

• investigation of a range of materials, effects, construction techniques and spatial arrangements to make a 3-D sculpture
• representation of the subject matter of an insect and its features.

Work Sample Assessment

Kim

Kim has demonstrated a very high level of competence in using forms and techniques to represent the qualities of the subject matter. There is evidence of careful and detailed observation in the body features. Bold, informed choices have been made in the selection of materials. Kim has used a variety of techniques to manipulate the wire to connect the body segments and assemble the insect. An effective and appropriate choice has been made to display the insect in a typical environment. This work sample demonstrates characteristics of work typically produced by a student performing at grade A standard at the end of Stage 2.

Chris

Chris has demonstrated an adequate level of competence in using forms and techniques to represent the subject matter of an insect and its features. There is evidence of observation in the correct number of legs and antennae but there is a lack of segmentation between the head and body. Sound choices have been made regarding materials, construction techniques and spatial arrangements to create a three-dimensional structure, but there is limited surface decoration and the display placement could be more effective. This work sample demonstrates characteristics of work typically produced by a student performing at grade C standard at the end of Stage 2.

Prior learning

Students have been participating in a Science unit on insects. They have used large photographs of insects to identify features including the shape of their body parts, the texture of their skin, patterns of their wings, colours and lines of their antennae. They have used soft pencils to draw insect body parts.

Students have observed and drawn insects, and created plasticine or soft clay models of them.

Board of Studies NSW, Creative Arts K–6 Units of Work, pp 32–37