Sculpture, Collage and Mixed Media

Remember from Grade 8

In Grade 8 you built three-dimensional constructions from motifs and studied actual texture. Now you will learn the main methods sculptors use and the vocabulary to describe them.

Art you can walk around

A drawing has one front. A sculpture in the round has many: a good sculptor checks every view. Sculpture also deals with real space, real mass (bulk), real texture and real light and shadow, which change as you move.

Sculpture in Canada ranges from Inuit artists' carvings in stone, bone and antler, to large public works. The Haida artist Bill Reid's bronze sculpture The Spirit of Haida Gwaii (1991) shows a canoe crowded with figures from Haida stories; one casting stands at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and another, in a green finish called The Jade Canoe, is at the Vancouver International Airport.

Methods and terms

• Subtractive: carving soap, wood or stone. You can't add material back, so plan from all sides and remove a little at a time.
• Additive (modelling): clay, salt dough, wax. Build up forms; push, pinch and smooth.
• Construction: cutting and joining cardboard, wood, wire or paper.
• Assemblage: a construction made from found objects (bottle caps, old keys, toys). The objects keep part of their old meaning, which adds to the message.
• Casting: pouring a liquid material (plaster, bronze, resin) into a mould. Usually done in a studio, not at home.
• Relief sculpture: projects from a flat background, like the faces on Canadian coins (low relief) or carvings on buildings (high relief).
• Kinetic sculpture: sculpture that moves, like mobiles.

Working with clay and dough

• Air-dry clay (sold at craft and dollar stores) hardens without a kiln but stays fragile and is not waterproof or food-safe.
• Salt dough (2 parts flour, 1 part salt, about 1 part water) can be air-dried or baked slowly at low heat by an adult.
• Keep thickness even, about 1 cm, so it dries without cracking. Hollow out thick forms.
• Join with score and slip.
• Dry slowly, loosely covered with a plastic bag for the first day, so the outside does not dry and shrink before the inside.

Armatures

Thin parts (arms, legs, tails) need support. An armature is a skeleton of wire (or rolled paper, dowels, pipe cleaners) fixed to a base. You bulk it out with crumpled foil or newspaper and masking tape, then cover it with papier-mâché (strips of newspaper dipped in a paste of flour and water or diluted white glue) or a thin layer of air-dry clay.

Collage and mixed media

Collage comes from the French coller, "to glue". Artists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque glued newspaper and printed papers into their works in the early 1900s. Later artists used photomontage (combining photographs) to make strong political and social statements. The French artist Henri Matisse, late in life, made large collages from paper he had painted with gouache and cut with scissors.

Collage techniques:

• Cut vs torn edges: cut edges look crisp and graphic; torn edges look soft and organic.
• Layering: overlap translucent papers (tissue, tracing paper) for depth.
• Found papers: maps, tickets, sheet music, flyers: they bring their own meanings.
• Mixed media: draw or paint over collage; add stitching, stamps or texture paste.
• Composition still rules: plan balance, a focal point and unity (a limited colour scheme helps).

Use a glue stick or white glue thinned slightly with water, brushed under and over thin papers (as a sealer) for flat results.