Get in touch with your tactile, eye and hand coordination and see what you can sculpt!
How can you create form from (recycled) materials in your home?
Could you create a piece of fashion like Cyrus Kabiru?
How can your form communicate an idea, a question, an opinion, or your experience?
Before You Begin:
Remember that art is ish, it's human, and whatever comes from you is what it's meant to be. There's no such thing as "good" or "bad," "right" or "wrong" in art, so get making!
When The Piece Feels Finished:
While art is never finished (it's alive and living!), share your art when you feel that it is grounded and whole - when you feel you have given it your full attention and care. Share your art by hanging it on a wall in your house, posting it on-line, or mailing it to someone you love.
Steps for Sculpting Form:
1. Yell: "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Make Art!" (This transitions your brain; there's research about this!)
2. Collect items in your environment that you can use to build a sculpture.
3. Clean the items and decide what your process will be:
Free flow, organic building
Sculpt an idea, a question, an opinion or experience
Remember that art making is a process; the product changes as the process unfolds.
Our art products are never exactly how we envisioned or planned; this is part of the art making magic!
Here is an idea you can create with (recycled) tinfoil:
1. Collect recycled tinfoil and clean the surface before sculpting.
2. Think about the form you'd like to create. What are the parts of the form?
3. Tinfoil requires a strong adhesive (like hot glue). It is possible to build a form without having to assemble many little pieces using a hot or strong (super glue) adhesive.
4. Divide your tinfoil into the sections of your form.
5. Carefully cut on the lines of your divided sections.
6. Begin by squishing each section slowly, like a first draft.
7. Refine your form by revisiting each section.
8. Further develop your form by molding the different details. Perhaps you can find tools in your kitchen or office area to help form the details.
9. Organically explore and build your form into something that shows an idea, your opinion, imagination, or experience.
Remember that this is ish art!
10. Draw your form and use mixed media (crayons, color pencils, markers, paint, collage). Even explore with adding a scene or a setting to your drawing, illustrating your form into a place or context. (See an example of this at the bottom of this blog post.)
11. When you feel finished with your form - when you feel grounded and whole in your art making, and have given the process your attention and care, see what you can notice in your product:
What most stands out about your piece?
What are you most proud of about your process?
How might you display or show your form?
How might this art piece live in the world? (I could display the art piece somewhere in my environment. I could share this process with someone when I talk to them on the phone or video call.)
12. Share your form with someone in your life and see if they'd like to try the process.
13. Notice your state-of-being: how do you feel? How can you describe your state-of-being?
14. Repeat the process and create a series.
Play with constraints:
find new materials to build with
try a different process for creating your form
create a collaborative piece with someone else, taking turns choosing the materials or method for creating
set a timer and only build for a specific amount of time
And, voilà: you've Found Your Form!