My Sheetrock Carving Workshop

 

 A week before Thanksgiving, at my annual state conference, I taught Sheetrock Carving in a 'Friday After Dark' workshop.  These are extended, hands-on after-dinner workshops, from 8:30pm-11:00pm, though my participants didn't actually leave until almost 11:30! When I recently mentioned this workshop in the Facebook Art Teachers group, I received a lot of questions, so I thought I'd give a quickie rundown here of the process.

The two masks at the top of the post, and the landscape and cartouche below are my personal examples, made for lessons done with my 6th grade students in past years.  The two masks above were painted very differently from each other; the one on the left was done with acrylics and is covered with a coating of an acrylic gloss (it might be ModPodge; I'm not sure).  The one on the right was painted with watercolors.  It gives a very interesting and subtle effect, I think.

 

The landscapes were an assignment covering multiple topics: students learned about relief carving, they used perspective to create depth, and they explored working with limited color choice.  The main painting was monochromatic, using values of one color of their choice.  They were allowed to add a pop of the complementary color (in various values) in one or two places in their landscape. The piece shown above was painted with acrylics.  It is a relief carving (as are all these pieces), though unfortunately it is hard to see the relief in the photo. The kids' work on this landscape project was lovely, their color choices were unique, and unfortunately I don't seem to have a single photo of the work.  Nor do I have photos of the students' carved masks. 

 I do, however, have many photos of student cartouche carvings.  You can see them in other posts on this blog, as I've actually posted about Sheetrock carving on this blog several times before.  You can find all the other posts (including one written after a workshop a year ago, and ones with student work from prior years) by following this link.  Meanwhile, here is a sample of student cartouche carvings.

In the workshop, we began by removing the paper surface from the Sheetrock, leaving on the cardboard backing.  To remove the paper, wet the surface with a sponge, let it soak in for a minute, and begin peeling.  Repeat.  You can use your thumbs, or you can use an artgum eraser to help remove the paper.

 Once the surface paper is removed, you are ready to carve.  Students can draw their plans and trace them onto the Sheetrock (once it is dry) with carbon paper, or draw directly with pencil.  Since we did all our work in one evening, participants drew quickly with pencils or proceeded with no pre-drawing at all.

 The workshop participants had some pretty creative ideas!  There was the hammerhead dog (above) and also a mermaid bunny, which you will see pictured later in the post.  What do we use for carving tools?  Preferred tools include a variety of sizes of U and V gouges (we've used both woodcarving tools and old linoleum cutters), sharp liner tools or some other pointy tool, and also heavy duty loop tools.  Because you work with the surface moistened, the tools don't slip as easily as on linoleum, meaning it really is rare that someone gets hurt with a cutting tool.  

On Facebook, people expressed concern about dust.  This is NOT an issue.  We keep the surface of the Sheetrock moist when carving, so no dust is produced.  Yes, it is messy; NO, it is not dusty!! 

Sometimes, the material may crack or break in unintended places.  You can either attempt a repair (mix up a small batch of plaster to patch), or glue any cracks when done.  My students liked the glued cracks, because it helped make their pieces look ancient.  Sometimes, though, an unintended break may necessitate a design adjustment, as in the mouth (above and below).  The artist was quite happy with her solution! Me too; I like the open mouth much better.

When carving was done, workshop participants had a variety of paints to experiment with.  The tree below was painted with acrylic.

 While this flower was painted with watercolor.   I think both pieces are lovely!

 Yes, it's the mermaid bunny! (below, painted with watercolor)

Other techniques we experimented with included painting the peeled surface with a coating of India ink prior to carving, and then carving into it, exposing the white gypsum.  I don't have a photo of the finished piece, but once the carving is done, the exposed white gypsum can then be painted with watercolor, and the whole thing can be sealed with an acrylic gloss if desired. 

  One last thing - if you do embark on carving Sheetrock, make sure it does NOT have fiberglass or some such filament in it, or it will feel like little needles poking into your hands.  All you have to do is hold up the Sheetrock and look at the edges.  You will see tiny clear/white hairlike pieces sticking out from the edge. Look carefully; they are small and almost colorless, but nasty!!  I purchased my Sheetrock at Lowe's in smaller more manageable sheets than the wall-size (maybe 36" square?), and while it was a little more costly to buy that way, it still is a very inexpensive item. 

And some more...

Only a couple left still to be finished. Thank goodness!

Cartouche, Cartouche!

Another batch - just finished on Friday, the end of the marking period. And there's a handful of stragglers who are doing GORGEOUS (but slow) work that will be in my room during lunch and study hall time Monday/Tuesday to finish, so they can get graded before their grades go on the report cards Wednesday morning. My mom used to say about me: "slow as molasses in January, moving uphill..." so I guess I should be more understanding of these kids, but NO. I always meet my deadlines. They just don't seem to 'get' it.

Then there's the lovely 6th grade student, a girl who came with her family from Mexico 4 years ago not speaking a word of English. She's totally fluent now, as matter of fact no longer qualifies for any ESL time, a hard worker, really sweet, and I've got nothing bad to say about her. BUT. And it is a big BUT: she went with her family to Mexico for more than a MONTH and just got back this past week. With the Christmas vacation in the middle of her trip, she still missed at least 3 weeks of school. We had just begun the project when she left, and she came back as everyone was finishing and starting something new. The first day she was missing I thought she was out sick. On the second absence, I asked the other kids, "is she OK?" and they told me she was in Mexico.

And while I'm betting she told her homeroom teacher (who in our 6th grade setup is also her social studies, ELA, and science teacher) and I'm sure she told her math teacher (the only other 6th grade teacher; they switch for social studies and math and keep the homeroom teacher for all other academics), and while I'm sure they gave her work to do to keep up during her absence, it didn't occur to her to tell me she was going. And the homeroom teacher certainly didn't pass on the info to me. I don't know if the student told the music teacher, or the teacher of whatever other 'special' she has right now. (I see the 6th graders twice for 40 minutes each, in a 6 day cycle, as does the music teacher. But they also have Home and Careers, and Tech, and other stuff I can't recall, each daily for a 10 week cycle.)

So am I the only one of her teachers confused what to do about grades? I haven't heard a 'peep' about it from anyone else! When the girl came to art this past Monday, and still had to prepare the sheet rock for carving, I gave her a set of hieroglyphics and newsprint to take home and prepare her design so that she could immediately start carving in the next art class. She didn't do it. So she had art again on Friday and spent the class doing what she should have done at home. I explained how upset I was that she hadn't told me. I would/could have given her an alternate assignment to do in Mexico - she could have done a fabulous art journal. She said "I'll get this done". She now has her design drawn and transferred onto her sheet rock, and the marking period is officially over.

But really - she can come in during lunch on Monday and engrave the lines. She can put a coat of paint on it during study hall on Tuesday. But it will lack the relief carving of all of the other student work. Is it fair to give her a grade on something done quickly, even if it looks nice (which it will; she is meticulous)? OR conversely, is it fair to penalize her for a choice her parents made?
The grades are numerical grades that are entered electronically. I can give her an incomplete but she'd still have to make it up, and unfortunately she is generally not able to stay after school.
What would YOU do?

Here's a closeup of one of the works shown above:

6th grade Carved Cartouches

Work-in-progress, sheet rock carving

Our 6th graders study ancient Egypt in social studies, and I've tried to coordinate an art project each year. I don't like to do the same thing every time (for 4 reasons: 1 - because I guess I get bored easily; 2 - because I get excited about new ideas; 3 - because the Libra in me makes it impossible for me to make up my mind; and 4 - because if a student repeats 6th grade he won't repeat the same project.)

Two of my favorite Egypt projects involve hieroglyphics. This year my students each carved a cartouche. The designs mostly represent either their name, their initials, a nickname, or a name of a family member. I blogged a lot about the process here last year. This year, we discovered that little pointed wooden sticks (scratch sticks) made excellent tools for carving deep lines, in addition to our other tools. And this year we did not draw directly on the Sheetrock. We drew on newsprint, and then used carbon paper to trace the design onto the Sheetrock. Much easier.

About 1/2 the kids are completely done, and today I loaded a bunch of them into the showcase by the library. The glass on it has this weird grid built into it, so the photos aren't great. Hopefully I'll remember to take more pics when the rest get done.

Some years, we've made giant mummy cases on brown Kraft paper. Including hieroglyphics is required. These pics are from a couple of years ago I think. They are outlined in black Sharpie, colored with oil pastels, and then we've added gold. I've used both gold paint and gold contact paper, mostly for hands and faces. The kids work in pairs, tracing the body of the smaller member of the pair, and working together to decide what the hieroglyphics will say.

Oh, what a RELIEF!

6th grade Egyptian "cartouche" carved in sheetrock
Patty, at Deep Space Sparkle http://deepspacesparkle.blogspot.com/ admits she struggles with form-based (3-D) projects, especially due to the space/storage considerations etc. It was a conversation she began about this very topic that got me to start my blog last May (thanks, Patty!), and my first five or so posts were all papier-mache and other 3-D projects. I'm a freak for working 3 dimensionally. The kids love it. Patty posted about this topic again today, inspiring my writing of this evening. (Patty, you're the momma of art teacher bloggers!)

I am the granddaughter of a Russian immigrant woodcarver/sculptor, but I only realized my "inner sculptor" a dozen or so years ago when I discovered I enjoyed the 3-D projects at school as much as my students! The big thing with 3-D work is planning - it's kind of like choreography - if the 2nd graders are making teddy bear chairs, the 3rd graders shouldn't be doing a papier-mache project and the 6th graders making altered books at the same time, or there's no place to put them. So I carefully schedule the 3-D work by grade level to make maximum use of my storage.

But one kind of form-based work that doesn't require the massive storage challenge of the stuff mentioned above, is any kind of relief project, and that's the topic of this post. One of my FAVORITE relief materials is tooling foil - I do a project with this material each year with my 6th graders, but we probably won't get to it until late winter or early spring. It is not messy, really easy, and the kids think it's really fun to work with. If I can locate some photos from prior years, I'll post them soon, otherwise you'll just have to wait until I have this year's project later this school year...

In the meantime, here's two favorite relief projects from last year:


First up, Egyptian cartouches. Students in 6th grade study ancient Egypt, so I do a related project in art class. We discuss what a cartouche is, and learn how to read some hieroglyphics. The students discovers that hieroglyphics can be written from left to right, right to left, or top to bottom, and they learn how to determine which way to read it. I give them stickers for solving simple words I leave around the room written in a hieroglyphic alphabet (I'm not sure why, but the older kids love stickers as much as the younger ones.).

Then we get to work. Using a variety of hieroglyphic sheets, they plan how to write their own name for their cartouche. Some use nicknames, some whole names, etc - I really leave it up to them, though the carving process is different for the more complex projects. (If they are doing something with many characters, their work will be more of an engraving than a relief, due to the limitations of the material.)

The art materials:

• Leftover sheetrock (also called Drywall) can be easily cut/broken into whateve size you want. I usually find a teacher who has done a home construction project over the summer and has leftovers to donate. Make sure you do NOT use the type that is fireproof - that has fiberglass in it. It has nasty little 'fingers' that get into your skin and hurt or itch. I believe the paper coating on the fiberglass stuff is a blueish or greenish color, rather than the regular gray paper, but check to make sure. You can actually SEE the little fiberglass hairs sticking out on the cut sides.
• Carving tools - V gouges, U gouges, and liner tools are all good.
• Sponges cut into small pieces
• Paints as desired - acrylic, watercolor, tempera, gloss, etc. It all depends on what kind of look you want.

The steps:

• Students should write their name with a Sharpie on the heavier cardboard side of the sheetrock, and then need to remove the paper from the other side.


• To remove the paper, moisten with a small sponge, and let wait for a minute to soak in (we sing the theme song from Jeopardy to determine whether it is ready). Then peel or use thumb to roll off paper coating. Repeat until all layers of paper are off. This will take a bit of time. Use just tiny sponges to prevent over-soaking the sheetrock. If it gets too too wet, it will break.


• Let dry until next art class, and then draw design what you plan to carve w/pencil.


• Get to work carving, moistening one area at a time with the tiny sponge. Students will need to understand relief vs engraving to determine what to carve. (Do I want the characters engraved IN, or do I want to carve around them so that they stand OUT?)


• Sheetrock is not thick, so discourage kids from carving down to the cardboard base. Oops! It's broken!!


• Sometimes, sheetrock that has been moistened or carved too much will crack. We tried to make our cartouches look ancient, so the kids didn't mind the breaks at all; actually they encouraged them, to my chagrin. Let all moisture dry out before gluing with Elmer's Glue-All (I usually glued them after school).


• Students painted in a variety of ways - some used gold paints, both tempera and acrylic, rubbing different golds on with fingertips for a richer look. I offered a limited selection of colors traditionally found in Egyptian carving, plus some students rubbed black into cracks and rubbed it back off for an antique look. The white carving above was not complete when I took the photos, so you can see what an unpainted piece looks like.

You can also use sheetrock for other carvings. We've made African mask relief carvings, engraved landscapes, and abstract relief designs.
Here's a second relief project:

These images are 4th grade relief sculptures created in homage to Louise Nevelson. We looked at and discussed her work, and students had a great time building these. We discussed the process of assemblage, and the prevalant themes of rhythm, movement, and texture in Nevelson's work. Each student brought in a shoe box lid, and then went to work with just a few basic parameters.

• The box lid had to be divided up somehow into smaller sections. Some divided them with wavy lines, others with straight. I provided cut strips of cardboard and tagboard for this purpose.


• I provided a bunch of random scrap materials to use. Their goal was to use these materials to create repeated rhythms, movement, and interesting overall design.


• One big rule was that nothing could stick up higher than the top edge of the box lid, or stick out beyond the sides. That way, we were able to store work-in-progress on the drying rack normally used for paintings. And because nothing stuck out the sides, we were able to hang them up side-by-side to display, which made them stay on the bulletin board more securely.


• When gluing, we discussed the meaning of the word porous, and used that word to help determine what glues would hold best. We mostly used Elmer's since lots of the objects were cardboard or wood, but also used some low-temp hot glue and some thick Tacky glue for hard-to-hold objects.


• And finally, each student could was able to select the paint color of his/her choice, but only ONE color, so that the shapes, rhythms, textures, and overall design became most important and obvious. This project was NOT about color.

I know this was a LONG post, maybe too long to read, but I hope it was worth reading! By the way - you don't necessarily need sheetrock for the first project. Instead, you can also use cardboard box lids for molds and pour casts of plaster of Paris to use for relief carving. And
Patty, thanks for being the inspiration for me becoming a Happy Blogger!