A Word From the Teacher – Ian Vost
Our school is a small rural school in the Village of Sixpenny Handley, which is close to Salisbury in he south of England. We are about 100 miles from London. We have 106 children from 4-9 years of age.
My class is Scorpions class and we have 24 children aged 8 and 9 so they are in Year 4 or 3rd grade in the US.
This term, we have have doing a project called Born in the USA, where we have been studying the history and culture of America. We have found out about the Wild West, the Declaration of Independence, made some very creative hot dogs and each researched a different state, to name a few activities.
For an art activity, I wanted the children to find out about American art, and in particular Pop Art. We looked at Lichtenstein and Warhol initially but I wanted to expose the children to a living and relevant artist. I’m a big US sports fan and I came across Charles Fazzino’s work for the Super Bowl a few years ago. What struck me was not only the distinctive Pop Art style and level of detail but how he fused this with 3D sculpture to almost create a new, modern art style.
I wanted the children to use similar techniques to Fazzino so we began by choosing our subject. New York City seemed the perfect choice, not only for the wonderful array of iconic buildings but it is also Fazzino’s home town.
The Cityscape Process
We researched what we wanted to include in our cityscapes and chose buildings such as the Empire State Building and One World Trade Center as well as traditional apartments you may find somewhere like Harlem or Brooklyn.
The children chose black and white line drawings of the buildings and coloured one set of of them in their choice of colour. We then photocopied (xeroxed) them onto thin card. The children then had to carefully cut our 3 sets of each building in order to create layers later on.
Once cut out, the children had to place one set onto black card and arrange their buildings to create their cityscapes. Once glued into place, the children used their second and third sets to create the 3D layered effect. We used foam pads the create each layer, giving the overall effect. To finish, the children created NYC letters to go with their designs.
Overall, despite taking about 6 hours of careful work, the children were incredibly pleased and proud of the finished result. They all felt it had been challenging in parts and they needed to use lots of precision and care when colouring and cutting out. The children also enjoyed the fact that they were working In a range of mediums. Our work was carefully mounted and displayed in our school hall and we shared it on social media.
3D Pop Art Works from the Students
A Thank You From Fazzino
Tell Us What You Think
