Category Archives: Printables

Printables, Sculpture, Uncategorized

Sculpting Giant Paper Mache Heads

You haven’t lived until you’ve made a giant paper mâché head. Well, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but it is pretty exciting. I’ve found that teaching 3D art in a school without a kiln forces me to think outside of the box and embrace some slightly goofy and larger-than-life ideas, and these paper mâché heads definitely fit into that category. My students are loving this project because it challenges them but also allows them to be a bit kooky and playful. Plus, they’ll end up with a wearable paper mâché head at the end, and who wouldn’t love that?

sculpting paper mâché heads that you can wear

Planning Paper Mâché Head Sculptures

We started this project by choosing a notable person that the students would like to sculpt. I had the students collect a range of photos of the person so that they could use those as references for the head shape and facial features. We also studied standard facial proportion to help us determine the size and placement of facial features on the head.

Paper Mâché Head Construction

Once planned, we started on the construction. You can see the detailed instructions for the construction of this project in the handout below and you can download a free .pdf file at the end of this post.

paper mâché head tutorial
Download the free .pdf file of this handout at the end of this post.

Basically, each student needed to make a cylinder of cardboard that fit around their head, without going over their shoulders. The cylinder should cover their entire head and extend around 4-5 inches above the top of their heads, when worn. We created the cylinders by using an Xacto knife to score lines in cardboard to make it curve. We then formed it into a cylinder and secured it with tape.

The remaining construction steps involve using cardboard and newspaper to secure the form and sculpt the face. The sculpting consists of crumpling the newspaper into different shapes and securing it on the head with tape. We then cover the entire form in tape to give it a smoother surface on which to add the paper mâché.

Steps for making large paper mâché heads.

The students are just now starting on their painting. We are discussing trompe l’oiel painting techniques to add the appearance of texture and details in areas like facial features and hair. This style of painting tricks the eye into perceiving painted details as three-dimensional objects, so it can be used to enhance the form of our sculptures. I’m excited to see how they turn out and I’ll be creating another post for the finished products so check back soon for that.

Interested in trying this project in your classroom? Download the handout below.

Paper Mâché Head InstructionsDownload

Update: Check out painted and finished heads here!

Photography, Printables, Resources

End of the school year activities – photo scavenger hunt

Hurry up and wait — that pretty much sums up the feeling of the last few weeks of the school year. There are so many things that need to be accomplished, but there is also a lot of downtime as students are finishing up final projects and studying for exams. It’s both relaxing and stressful, and I inevitably end up needing some end of the school year activities for students to do while I am finalizing grades. Luckily, I found a fun way for students to stay engaged in our photography material, and have some fun — a photo scavenger hunt!

I created a scavenger hunt that includes photos that test my students’ DSLR knowledge, as well as compositional skill. I also threw in a bunch of fun and unusual types of subject matter so that students would find it challenging to complete all of the photos.

Photography students challenge with a photography scavenger hunt.
Photography students can test their knowledge in a fun end-of-the-year activity by completing this photography scavenger hunt.

The best way I’ve found to assign the challenge is to have interested students team up. The members of each team of students can all add photos to one list. Once the team feels like they completed the most of the items, I can check their photos with them and then mark down the number that they completed. The team with the most items completed gets a prize (usually candy).

My students have always seemed to enjoy this activity and it still reinforces many of the skills and concepts we learned throughout the year. You could take this idea and adapt it to fit with other art classes or other subjects as well.

This scavenger hunt tests students’ knowledge of their cameras, photo lighting, and compositional techniques, as well as offering them a fun end-of-the-year activity.

The great thing about assignments like this is that students have to work together to figure out what some of these terms mean and how to capture them in a photo. It also makes the students have to apply what they learned during the year, helping to solidify the concepts in their minds.

If you teach a photography class, feel free to download a printable .pdf of my scavenger hunt list below. Enjoy, and here’s to the end of another school year!

photo scavenger huntDownload