TOS Review - ARTistic Pursuits - Sculpture Technique: Model

My longtime readers probably already know that we eat, breathe, and live art just about every day of our life. Grace draws nearly everyday for hours on end. Grace and her father are involved in an art guild together and it seems they are always getting together for art shows or some other art event. This semester our Cooperative offered a pottery class which Grace attended and loved. All of this evolved into our interest in reviewing Sculpture Technique: Model from ARTistic Pursuits. We did review one of their products last year and you can read the review through the link provided. We were very grateful to be chosen to review for the company again but with a different product.

Due to Grace's new found enjoyment with pottery I felt this product would be a great fit for us and we weren't disappointed. Of course this book has more than just pottery projects. Sculpture Technique: Model has three units, including Creating Mass with Putty, Creating Scale with Clay, and Creating Surface with Fiber. An art supply list is provided in the beginning of the book. Our projects required clay and clay tools which we purchased through a local art store for very reasonable prices.

The book came to us as a spiral bound paper edition consisting of 83 pages. We concentrated our time on Unit 2: Creating Scale in Clay. Each unit contains information on safety while using the materials, what materials to use for each project, color images, examples of famous sculptures, and step by step instructions for each project. Grace chose to concentrate on the pinch method (her favorite) and coil method. Most of the instructions and tips were things she already knew from pottery class but she enjoyed reviewing the material and learning a couple of tips that were new to her.



The pinch pot method even came in handy at a local event to celebrate Good Friday. She helped children create small pinch pots to take home, so all the review was great to get her prepared for that.

Creating pinch pot



Her second project was using the coil method and she chose to leave the coils in place to create a snake that can be used as a small cup to hold paperclips or other small items. She got a little frustrated with this type of clay as it was different than the first project. She said it felt too much like dirt. In light of that I would strongly suggest you pay close attention to the type of clay you do buy because there are differences in texture and how it handles. This really only has to do with our experience with the clay and not the art book.



Grace chose to take her pinch pot a step further and gave it to her pottery teacher to fire to make it stronger.

At the end of each unit is a self-evaluation assessment. The student can do this on their own to evaluate each finished project and what they learned in the unit.

Over the summer we hope to come back to the book to do some felting. I've always found it very interesting but never took the time to learn it.

Sculpture Technique: Model retails for $47.95 and is recommended for ages 11-18. This book has nice colorful images as well as easy to follow step by step instructions that include pictures. The student could create the projects exactly as explained or use the information taught to get creative and construct an original design, which is what Grace did. I felt this program was well thought out and presented to the student. You can always rely on ARTistic Pursuits to put out a great product. Take a few minutes to check out Sculpture Technique: Model, especially if you have a child interested in fiber and clay arts. The Crew reviewed other art instruction books from the same company that you should check out too!

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