Tag Archives: high school art class

Sculpture, Uncategorized

Giant papier mache heads – the finished products

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My students had so much fun constructing giant papier mache heads. I posted earlier this year about the construction process for this project, but I wanted to follow up with this post on the final painted products.

This was such a great project to teach a variety of concepts such as facial proportion when sculpting, color theory when mixing paint, and trompe l’oeil painting techniques when applying implied texture to things like hair. Plus, the students really loved working on this project and seeing their people come to life.

Giant papier mache heads

Painting Giant Papier Mache Heads

We started the painting process by applying a skin tone to the majority of the head, extending partially into the hair line. We mixed the skin tone using primary colors of yellow, blue, and red. The students made an orange from the yellow and red and then added a small amount of blue to tone down the color. They then added the color gradually to white until it took on the skin value they needed.

We painted white over the eyeballs and then added eye color and detail with Sharpie marker. The hair was painted with mixed acrylic, and students added subtle streaks of lighter and darker colored paint to imply texture.

It was really exciting to see how each student had to use problem-solving skills to represent the unique features of their chosen people. Some students added extra parts such as nose rings and glasses, others had to come up with unique skin tones and face painting (as you can see in the Bowie head below), and others even created dread locks from yarn.

Painting a ziggy stardust papier mache head
A student puts the finishing touches on her David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust) papier mache head.
Student painting a papier mache head.
A second round of skin tone going on after the first was deemed too pinkish. Students mix all of their paint from primaries and white.

If you are a teacher wanting to try this in your art class, make sure you have enough space, tons of cardboard, newspaper, and tape. Also have something for the students to work on during the down times while projects are drying. We worked on artist book prompts simultaneously so students were always creating and never felt like they just had to sit and wait for the next step.

In the end, this project turned out to be so much fun and the students really took ownership of their heads. It was a slightly goofy project but the students really did learn valuable lessons and had a good time in the process. What could be better than that?

Students wearing their finished paper mache giant heads
The finished heads were all wearable, but students needed to cut a small slit in the mouth in order to see.
Finished pappier mache heads.
Students showing off their finished papier mache heads.
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