Younger Children

Subject: Form and shape
Activity: Aluminum foil sculptures
Materials: Aluminum foil, tape, cardboard
Vocabulary: Shape, texture, mold, bronze
Sculptures can be made from many different materials. Marc Quinn melted a metal called bronze and poured it into a mold of a shell to make Spiral of the Galaxy.
He polished the inside to make it smooth and shiny, just like a real shell.
What materials can be used to make a sculpture?
Describe the different textures you see.
How do you think the artist created the different textures?
Scrunch, crumple, and bend sheets of aluminum foil into different shapes. Can you make a figure of a boy or girl? What about a shell? Use the foil like clay and try to make many shapes and tape them together to create one large sculpture. Use more tape to attach your finished sculpture to the cardboard as a pedestal like Spiral of the Galaxy.
Set your new sculpture outside and see how it sparkles in the sunlight just like Spiral of the Galaxy!
Shape: A form like a circle, square, or triangle
Texture: The smooth or rough feel of a sculpture or painting
Mold: An empty form that can be filled with melted metal to create a sculpture
Bronze: A type of metal used in sculpture that has a golden color
Jim Dine, History of Black Bronze I
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Figure on a Trunk
Eduardo Paolozzi, Figure