Making Sculptures With Phoenix

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Phoenix has been obsessed with sculptures!

A few weeks ago I shared all the fun we’ve been having making land art around the desert where we live as well as in the wintery wonderland of Sedona too!

But thanks to THIS GREAT BOOK we borrowed from the library, Phoenix has taken the sculpture making inside to the studio for awhile.

The main characters of Look! Look! Look! at Sculpture are three mice who teach kids how to look, talk, and think about art while also sharing some fun basic art principles to explore too.

In this book they go to the art museum to celebrate sculpture.  The main piece on display is Barbara Hepworth’s Four Rectangles with Four Oblique Circles.  They look around at the sides, the back, and at the front — noticing how sculptures have many dimensions.

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After reading this book for the bazillionith time, Phoenix asked to make his own sculpture inspired by Barbara Hepworth’s piece.

The first thing we did was search in Dad’s workshop for some wood remnants.

Next, Phoenix used a pencil to mark where he wanted Dad to drill a hole in each piece.  Once Dad so kindly obliged, I grabbed the glue gun and assisted Phoenix in hot gluing his forms onto a wood platform we purchased for 99 cents from Micheals!

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All of the decision making of course was up to Phoenix.

He stacked the forms, laid them on their sides, and placed them into various configurations before deciding on their final placement.

I encouraged him to turn the platform around and make sure that he liked the sculpture from all angles and he got a total kick out of peeking through the holes!

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Next came my favorite part: PAINT!

Phoenix used a combination of acrylic, tempera, and glitter paint.  I warmly suggested using any colors he wished, but he insisted on grey like the original sculpture.

The funny thing is that I noticed while posting the photos here that we totally forgot to put Phoenix’s art smock on — but there were luckily no major messes made during this creation!

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Sure Phoenix’s sculpture might lack the sophistication and elegance that Barbara Hepworth’s possesses — but I highly doubt that her work ever prompted a smile as big as Phoenix’s after finishing his art!

And isn’t that what art is all about anyways?

Please be sure to stop by next Friday when Phoenix and I share with you how much fun it is to go to the museum and see real sculptures in person!

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