Making things in three dimensions
Art & Design · Key Stage 1 · The School
Two ways to make a shape
You can ADD material — rolling, coiling, pressing pieces together, building up with clay, dough, card or found objects. Or you can TAKE AWAY — carving into soap, plaster or a block of clay. Adding lets you change your mind; taking away does not, so it needs more planning first.
Making it hold together
Two pieces pressed together fall apart. Score both surfaces, wet them a little, and press firmly, and they stay. For card and paper use tabs and glue, or slots that fit into each other. A model that keeps collapsing usually needs a support inside rather than more material outside.
It has no front
A drawing has one viewpoint. A made object has all of them. Turn it as you work, and look at the back as often as the front. If the back is unfinished it is not finished. Standing it on a table and walking round it once tells you more than staring at it from where you happen to be sitting.
ADDITIVE: start with nothing and add — coils of clay, folded paper, glued card, wire. You can always add more, and joins are the weakness. SUBTRACTIVE: start with a block of soap or clay and carve away — you cannot put it back, so you cut cautiously. Make the same simple animal both ways. The additive one will be lighter and more fragile; the subtractive one solid and blunter. Now turn each and check every side.