This wire portrait sculpture lesson is easy, inexpensive and creates quirky and impressive results! I like to use it as an intro to a more in-depth figure sculpture lesson or as an additional artwork during a contour drawing lesson.
This short video will give you a synopsis of the technique used to create wire portraits in the classroom.
Full length Wire Portrait Sculpture Tutorial for the Classroom
This is a full length tutorial that will walk you through each step in real time. This is great for showing students before starting so they can visualize the technique. It is also helpful during times like after spring break when everyone forgets how to be a human…
Materials
Buying the right wire is essential to the success of this artwork. Wire is already a non-friendly material and students sometimes recoil (get it) when they are used to working with materials like clay. I purchase the 350 feet spool of 14 gauge aluminum wire. I wish I could tell you exactly how much to order for a certain number of students, but that’s just not how my brain or classroom works. We use about a yard (hands outstretched for each student) at a time, but I never know how to gauge (get it). My advice is always order more than you think you will need!
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Art History Connections
Alexander Calder is a natural artist to connect with. He is most famous for his mobiles and stabiles, but he was a prolific portrait artist using wire to capture the playful likeness of a wide range of people. Read more about his wire portraits here:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/meet-another-side-of-alexander-calder-at-the-portrait-gallery-7171285/: Wire Portrait Sculpture
My students have a daily art history warm-up practice in their sketchbook that allows them to explore a variety of artists through an art criticism lense. This is one of my most important classroom management strategies and it also allows for students to engage in more than just creating art. It’s also a great way to address all the state and national standards weekly.
Read more about that here:
Here is a free download of one week of warm-ups focusing on Alexander Calder. I always play around with the questions I ask students for each day depending on their skill level and what goals I have for them. Feel free to adapt this for your classroom, this can be used as a template. I just use the same format and edit it in Google Slides.
Getting Started
This technique is easy enough for upper elementary students and challenging enough for high school students. This lesson can be simplified or expanded on depending on the level of your students. If they are beginners, drawing over a printed photograph can help them see essential lines. If they are more advanced in their drawing skills, have them do a series of contour drawing from life.
This would be a great extension artwork for an upper level drawing assignment. It helps with exploration of line that jumps right of your paper. This is one of my favorite contour drawing lessons:
Another less drawing heavy option is to use photographs. I currently teach this in my Sculpture II class, and most of those students are not looking to draw. They take this class to get their art credit and be hands on. I am not saying they all “can’t” or don’t like to draw, but it’s a different demographic than my Art II to AP Studio track.
We use the website unpslash.com because most of their images are free, and all of them are high quality images. Students can also use their own photographs and can be a great photography connection. I print the images out for them and we trace over the most essential elements using one continuous line. If they photograph is distracting to them, have them flip it over to the back so they just see the Sharpie outline.
Once students trace their contour, or essential line, they begin to form the wire around it. We use masking tape to hold it in place and it’s essential to loop the wire when moving on from on facial feature to another.
I like to teach this either using my Elmo document camera so my gigantic classes can see each step up close. The wire portrait video is great for review or to highlight key moments, but I love teaching everything step by step. This camera is super expensive and I was lucky for mys chool district to buy it for me. It has been a game changer in the classroom. You find more affordable ones, but I love my Elmo.
It’s important to lock in the major areas so the wire doesn’t wiggle out of place. If you are moving on from one facial feature to another, loop twice so your wire keeps it’s form. Sometimes it’s hard to balance too much wrapping with the simplicity of line, but with practice it becomes easier.
Final Wire Portrait Sculpture Results
I love the quirky results and I am always impressed with how much information a line based sculpture can capture. These are also super fun to photograph and play around with shadow. I like to have my students attach them to a wooden base (we still have a woodshop at my school), but you can create a wire base as well. They can also be attached to black matt board for a more 2-D approach, and I have always wanted to connect them altogether to create a group mobile.
