ARTistic Pursuits- Sculpture Technique: Model

Art is one of my children's favorite subjects. When they were young, it was easy for me to come up with projects for them to complete. They also were quite creative on their own by just giving them some supplies and letting them go at it. As they got older though, I knew we needed some more direction with an art curriculum to expand their horizons with projects that were more complex than I could come up with. We were recently asked to review an art curriculum from ARTistic Pursuits called Sculpture Technique: Model which was just published this past January!

What is it?
ARTistic Pursuits is a full art curriculum for preschoolers thru 12th grade. The specific book we reviewed, Sculpture Technique: Model is an 83 page book containing both colored pictures as well as sketched pictures in black and white. It is comb-bound which makes it great for laying flat, especially while working on an art project so you can easily reference the pictures. This book is geared for ages 11-18 and covers 3 units about:

-Creating Mass with Putty
-Creating Scale with Clay
-Creating Surface with Fiber

The beginning of the book lists the contents as well as the supplies you need for each unit:

In the back of the book, it breaks down each unit into weekly lessons stretching out over 36 weeks. I love this aspect as I don't need to plan anything out! If you complete this whole book, it would easily make 1 full credit for high school art.

At the end of each unit, there is an evaluation for the student to complete on a separate sheet of paper (the answers are listed in the back of the book). The great thing about the ARTistic Pursuits books is that they are non-consumable so once you buy the book, you can use it for all your children over the years! This is one of the reasons this art curriculum is affordable. Another aspect that saves time with this art curriculum is that on the ARTistic Pursuits website, they have are supply packs that you can purchase that provides all the supplies needed for each book. They also list a website that you can click on the book you want and it has a shopping cart ready to order of the needed supplies.

How we used it:

I asked my older children which unit they wanted to work on for this review as you can do the units in any order. They chose the unit on creating scale in clay. I used the website that had the supplies ready to purchase and ordered online quite effortlessly. The unit starts off talking about the elements of sculpture and how it relates to scale. It also discusses materials that can be used in sculptures as well as an in-depth description of the tools & techniques used to create different pieces of art. Safety is also covered (who knew that dust from dried clay can be harmful!)

After the above is discussed in the book, it then goes on to share the different methods of creating works of clay and shows ideas of projects you can make using:

-Pinch Method

-Slab Method

-Paper Armature

-Coil Method

How to paint a finished project is also explained as well. At the beginning of each project, it lists in detail which tools are needed as well as how much clay & other materials needed. It also reminds the students to keep unused clay covered as this type of clay dries out and isn't the kind that needs baked to harden.

My children really gave thought to what projects they wanted to do and spent time gathering all needed materials before we got the clay out. We also went over how the book said to join pieces by scoring each side that was to be connected.

The above piece was being turned into a coil project which was the beginning stages of a hollow bear.

The containers seen in the above photos were used to help form the different size pots she was making as was instructed in the book. She had made 3 different size pots and when she turned her back, her little sister decided to "reshape" one of her pots (she woke up from her nap before they were done sculpting!) Needless to say, the finished project only had 2 pots. 

Finished coil method project with texturing in the clay.

Painting the finished pots. She had a clay flower on one of them but it fell and broke off.

A rolled out piece of clay using the slab method with etching done & painted.

These projects in total took several days to complete as they needed to slowly dry out while being covered loosely in plastic. Once they were fully dried, they were then painted. We still have clay left and are working on completing a paper armature (I say "we" but it's more momma that is itching to do that project!)

My children enjoyed the lessons & projects they completed from this book and we plan to work on some more clay projects as well as purchase the Durham's rock hard water putty to work on the 1st unit in the book, Creating Mass with Putty.

While there are numerous pictures throughout the book that helped give my children ideas, I think they also would've loved seeing some videos online to see ideas or projects in action. Overall though, we enjoy ARTistic Pursuits art curriculum!

Sculpture Technique: Model can be purchased for $47.95. They also have a full range of other books for preschool thru 12th grade.