The teaching of 3D

The teaching of 3D in Post Primary Schools can be a tricky subject. There are space restrictions to consider and organisational factors in preparation. Also, the curriculum of the Junior Cycle and Leaving Cert states that the students must engage with a primary source to begin this learning. In practice, with 3D this is where teaching and learning of the subject get tricky. Where do the teacher and student depart from the primary source and what kind of primary source should this be.

Introductory Level;

This is how I approached it in my own practice. My students are all first years so all disciplines must be at an introductory level.

I wanted to introduce my students to different ways of engaging with 3D objects. I decided a good way of doing this was also begin a small course on photography with the use of smartphones. The information I used for this is available at;

Phone Photography Tutorial

The exercises I gave them were set out as a support for the in-class exploration with clay. In my presentations, I also included well-taken pictures of sculptures. These pictures included what Neil Grundy calls his 'Transient Sculptures'. These are pictured below;

These photos gave the perfect platform to talk about the importance of photography within sculpture as this may be the only way an audience will ever engage with the work. Also, Jason Decaires Taylor's underwater sculpture park gave similar results, as, unless you're deepsea diving off the coast of Bali you are not going to encounter these sculptures except through video or photography.

Taylor's work also gave me the opportunity to explore the theme of environmental sustainability with my classes. Each of his sculptures is the correct ph to sustain coral reefs. This is an interesting topic to explore different artists with. Damien Hirst killed over nine thousand butterflies to create his 'In and Out of Love', 1991. Should art be allowed to interfere with nature? In fact, Hirst has killed more animals in the name of art than any other living artist. Should this man be allowed to be a billionaire? This is always an interesting topic with twelve-year-olds.

To each of my classes, I introduced one type of form drawing. One was introduced to planar drawing. 

Planar drawing is an exploration of form describing the planes of a 3D structure. Here are some examples of planar drawing;

They can range from very simple as illustrated above

To more detailed renditions as with the giraffe or the head below

Planar drawings are very beneficial to your students understanding form. Drawing is at the core of each discipline on the Junior Cycle curriculum and it is vital to always return to it. While revisiting it is good to keep in mind that certain types of drawing should be explored with certain disciplines. 

Cross contour drawing is the second type of drawing I introduced to my classes. This is drawing both directions of the form with contour lines. This is illustrated below;

These techniques I felt on their own, were enough for the students to explore, especially for first years. 3D itself as a discipline lends itself more to being discovered through the process. It is a tactile discipline after all. 

For my classes, I gave an introductory demonstration of three techniques; coiling, scoring and slip. These are illustrated below. I started with a discussion on health and safety. I concentrated mainly on good clay practice. Always knead your clay beforehand and make sure there are no air bubbles in it. This is highly important if you are firing the clay, as air bubbles can lead to the piece exploding and destroying everything in the kiln. Also, if you are working on a surface make sure it is clean. Any foreign substances within the clay can also lead to cracking or exploding. 

Coiling is mainly used for creating coily pots. This is achieved by rolling out a piece of clay into a long snake-like structure;

Scoring is scratching the surface of clay with a tool in multiple directions. This can be achieved with a variety of tools;

The slip is achieved by mixing a small bit of clay with water. Ideally, I would leave this overnight but as we could not do this in the classroom I made sure my students understood that it is the slimy substance around the bit of clay within the water that we use as a glue or slip. To create the pots you begin coiling the long snake-like structure around and lay it on top of itself;

The layers of coil are held together with the slip and the score. This is a very quick and easy way to introduce clay to your students and the results can sometimes be surprisingly varied. 

Showing students some results from pots always helps with creativity;

For the purpose of Coil pot building alone there is great information on the history of the tradition in this presentation;

Coil pot history


Due to time restrictions, this is all my classes had the time to explore. In my own practice and workshops, I had the time to explore much more.

Intermediate Level;

In my own practice I had the time to explore building through the use of maquette. A maquette is a small model of the proposed sculpture. My first maquette was made using very light paper and sellotape. This was of a hand;

A very simple structure of a hand using paper and sellotape

This technique is used to great effect by the creators of the Shandon Dragon in Cork City. All of their sculptures are made using this simple building technique;

As we can see they create some very detailed sculptures that are very effective from paper and sellotape.

From here I advanced to wire structuring. As soon as we approach this part of the discipline health and safety becomes and issue. Goggles should be provided for any student working in the vicinity of wire sculptures and demonstrations of good practice should be given to all students in the wire area.

Regular safety goggles will do in any range. This is to ensure small bits of wire being clipped off structures do not end up damaging a student's eyes;

There are many different types of pliers, all which yield different results. It is desirable to have a range of these and let your students explore them;

For my own exploration and structure I again decided to practice the structure of a hand as I know I wanted my finished piece to be about connection and touch. For the fingers, instead of using the pliers I used a pencil to wrap the wire around. Once the wire is shaped it holds it shape. Wire is a good medium to talk about cross contour drawing with as many wire sculptures resemble line or contour drawings;

Wire Hand, front view

Side view

Front view

Wire makes for a great set up for photos of the work as well. it often can lead into discussions on drawing by the likes of Giacometti due to his erratic use of the pencil to capture form;

From the wire structure I advanced to the clay structure, having decided I would also introduce a face to the piece. For this piece I slowly worked up the clay. This was through the adding of small bits of clay and mixing it with slip. This is relatively slow process but yields great results;

Finished hand from rear angle

Front view of hand

Side view of hand

The theme of the work had developed into human connection. I was trying to access something very fragile through clay. This I wanted to capture through the hand and face splitting into pieces;

Face, view from below

I created the face and decided to split it afterwards. I was approaching the hand in the opposite way. I was going to build these pieces on to it.

The two pieces before the disaster.

When I look back upon this now, its more with irony I see the next event that took place. My three and a half year old son knocked a board on top of the hand. This is the result;

Carnage

I say irony because I was trying to create something that was breaking up and disintegrating rather than a completed sculpture. All my son, Charlie could say was, 'College work!' and bounce along obliviously. I decided to embrace the rubble and add more to finished piece. As luck would have they are currently tearing down my old college so I collected some rubble from the building site. This I thought put a fine finish to the degree, if not the piece.

                                          Photo to come


The teaching of contemporary sculpture is fascinating, especially the history and appreciation side

I have achieved good results introducing the weird and wonderful into the class. Two of my favourites have been;

Mark Quinn's self-portraits in pints of his own blood. This really gets a reaction, especially form the first years.

Secondly, the ever-creepy Anita Leqouia's sculptures of strangers faces she creates using the dna from disgarded chewing gum she finds on the ground

 It is good fun, both trying to make the connections of what is going on in the photo above and having that discussion that inevitably follows.