Claes Oldenburg Large Scale City Sculptures

student work

2nd grade has been busy learning about scale and proportion by studying Claes Oldenburg and his larger than life food sculptures! We talked about some of his sculptures are soft like an inflatable bed and some are large and hard to withstand outside weather.



student work...yum, cupcake sculpture!

 We mainly focused on his food sculptures and wanted to show scale of sculptures in a city. First we got a sheet of white paper for the background. Then used scrap paper to cut buildings out of to glue down for a city. Then we used lots of shape & color to create windows and repetition. We used Crayola construction paper crayons to make the windows. Then we talked about the background for the sky. What time of day is it? Is the sun setting? Rainy? Clear blue sky? Night? Color in the background accordingly.

Lastly, find your large scale food sculpture by scowering through Women's Day or other food magazines. Cut it out and glue it and anchor it to the 'ground'. Voila! Food sculpture in the city!

Claes Oldenburg Spoon Bridges

Kindergarten learned about large scale sculpture from one of the masters, Claes Oldenberg! I first started off showing a picture of the famous spoon bridge using my projector and asked if anyone had actually seen it before. Surprisingly, lots of students raised their hands! Many had traveled to Minneapolis or actually saw the sculpture in person. I explained that this sculpture formed a 'bridge' over a small pond and when it was warm outside, it became a sprinkler (sprays from the stem) for a fountain!

Each student, was given a piece of green paper for the 'grassy area' of the sculpture garden. We talked about that a scuplture garden, is a grassy area, sometimes in the back of a museum, that contains many large scale sculptures on display so you can walk around and get an upclose look. Then students were given a piece of blue construction paper to cut out a 'pond' like that of the original sculpture & for the spoon to cross. Then we used different shades of green oil pastels to make little lines for grass. Then Model Magic clay came into play (only the best stuff on earth!) for the round cherry. Model magic is great because it's light, no mess involved, soft, and you can color on it! So if you don't want to have to fire it and have something heavy, this is fast and easy! We rolled it into a ball, then used red washable crayola markers coloring it in!  

Then they were ready to come to my station where put a dot of hot glue to secure our 'bridge' and then another dot of hot glue on the end of the spoon to secure the cherry. I had already cut a bunch of brown pipecleaners to add the finishing touch, the stem, which I let them add, for their final touch as the artist!