Year 6 - Sculptures

Year 6 have enjoyed their Art unit of learning this term, where they focused on Sculptures. They began their learning with an artist study of Sir Anthony Gormley, the creator of ‘Another Place’ and ‘The Angel of the North’. They enjoyed learning all about the impressive public sculptures that he makes, and they began thinking about how it would feel to be in the presence of them. As both of these famous sculptures are based on the human form, the children were interested in how they may be interpreted by different people. After a class discussion, they realised that the same sculpture could make different people feel different emotions. For instance, ‘The Angel of the North’ was interpreted as depicting hope to some children, whilst others said it made them feel intimidated. As a result of this, they began discussing how they could portray a range of different emotions using our bodies.

After this, the children began thinking of which emotion they would like to portray within their own sculpture of the human form. They discussed how they could depict emotions such as ‘optimism’, ‘confidence’ and ‘spirituality.’ After choosing their own emotion that they wanted to portray, the children started thinking about how to show that within a sculpture. Each child chose a pose that they would like to portray within their sculpture, and used this as inspiration when creating their sculpture of the human form.

Year 6 used air-drying clay to create their sculptures of the human form, focusing on posture and position. They used the slip, score and blend technique to join the different body parts together. To do this, they used a variety of sculpting tools, including ribbon tools, shaping tools and sculpting wires. Although it was difficult to ensure that their sculptures were able to hold the desired position, they remained resilient and eventually achieved what they wanted.  

Well done to Year 6 for showing determination and a love for learning!