In this past period, I have heard students so many times saying: “she is copying me, he is copying me”, to which I say: “this is not copying from you. This is taking inspiration from you.”
When somebody creates art, meaningful art, others find inspiration from it, and by trying to emulate it, they themselves create more art.
The artworks will never be the same because each one of them is different and has a unique style.
Starting in November, PNA decided to participate in the decoration of a tree for the Kincaid Solstice event. So, with all the classes, we craft a Christmas ornament made with papier mache, as a school project.
The process was long and had many passages. Students with patience first covered a plastic ornament with a hole on a side with an instant paper mache technique: a thin layer inside and one outside.
They experimented with how to make papier mache combined with warm water to arrive at a clay consistency.
After they sketched how they want to decorate outside, they started painting it with acrylics.
They also had to come up with what to place inside the ornament: a free-form sculpture of their imagination. Some did a Christmas tree, others an animal. They all had so much fun creating different things. They loved creating a mini sculpture.
There are many skills that are being practiced during the process of making this art:
-participating in a bigger project that involves the whole school is giving your part in it is important for one-day role in the community
-understanding how much water to add to the papier-mache to make it into clay, thereby developing tactile artistic abilities
-engage your imagination and utilize your creativity to turn ideas into matter
-create something simple or unique is inspiring others to be less shy and be free to create their own structures
-practicing patience and tenacity to create a complex artwork, developing the ability to understand a detailed work of art and be satisfied with it at the end
-be able to transform a mistake into something greater, finding solutions to problems.
I saw the students deal with these characteristics all the time in this past month and the results at the end were stunning.
