Settings and Context
3D Artistic Ablitities
3D Artistic Abilities is a sculptural based class of students that range from 20-50 years old who have emotional and learning differences. Most of them have jobs, and either live with a sponsor or guardian. We would have class from 4-6pm on Tuesday nights, and we had these sessions for 5 class periods. We had four other teachers that were part of this program, and the students were always engaged and ready to create. The students that were part of this class were:
Student #1 - This student was a happy bright woman, and she always put a lot of thought behind her work. All of her pieces that she created it was thought out and very detailed.
​
Student #2 - This student was a excited and outgoing student. You could tell she loved creating. She sometimes struggled with focusing and staying on task. But, I found out when she was overwhelmed and over stimulate is when she had a hard time focusing.
​
Student #3- This young man was really thoughtful and kind. And always was considerate of his other classmates, and enjoyed participating in critique. He also would catch on to a lot of different techniques and mediums quickly.
​
Student #4 -This student was a very sweet student. She loved see all of her friends at class and enjoyed making art. She sometimes was nervous about certain new materials and often would have the mindset of not having the confidence to do it. But, she just needed some encouragement and she would do great.
​
Student #5- This student was very outgoing and loved to talk. And her spirit was often very appreciated by the other students. She would get so excited about new materials, especially with ones that she was comfortable with. Sometimes, we would have a hard time focusing on topic, and she would be afraid some certain things like working with balloons. We overcame those, and overall she really excelled in class.
Student #6- This student was a bright young man, he loved to paint and mix colors. That was his favorite thing to do, when you talked about paints it seemed to light up his world. Which bought such a smile to my face. There were times were communication was difficult but, I found out when I left him to focus on his own work was when he really excelled. often times, I would start creating next to him and ask him what his thoughts on my piece were, and then he would start creating on his own.
​
Student #7- This sweet women was also a joy to have in class. She loved talking about her pet dog or what she was doing with her family over the weekend. And her favorite project was the paper maché masks that we made in class. This was the most I had seen her be actually proud of her work. That was sometimes hard, she would think that she didn't make that good of work, and we had to constantly encourage about how she was such a talented artist. Overall, she was a delight to have part of the classroom.
​
Student #8- This student always came early and was eager to create. At of all the students, I think she caught on the fasted and learned very quickly on what we were creating. She always was so focused when creating her work, and worked very well on her own for most of the class. I would check on her occasionally during class, but overall she was very independent.
​
Student #9- This student loved to laugh, and unicorns. And we always talked about how much we liked both those things. She did not have much movement in her hands, and so we would come up with different ways of working with her. Sometimes she would hold the pencil and I would move the paper, or she would hold one side of the paper and I would hold the other and we would split down the middle. When talking through sketches she knew exactly what she wanted to create, and every time she did a sucessful job of creating what she was envisioning.
​
We worked with a lot of different materials including, recycled materials, acrylic paint, paper maché, and aluminum foil. We learned about shaping and forming materials. And using are sketches as a platform for what we were going to create.
​
We had three parts to the class, first explain and sketching our ideas. Second half, creating. And the towards the end of the class, we would discuss what went well, how we created the work, and what our favorite part of the piece is. Students learned how to talk about their work, but also we tried to teach how important it is to encourage one another as artist. Overall, students walked away knowing more about 3D artists, artworks, and how to create three dimensional artwork. And they also learns how to a positive encouraging artist.