Artist Study: Dale Chihuly

As part of our sculpture unit we looked at the work of Dale Chihuly. The kids were fascinated by the fact that you could make sculpture out of glass. We started by watching a short video of Chihuly at work. Chihuly video frrom CBS Early Show

Then we looked at examples of Chihuly's "macchia" sculpture, such as these:

Then we made our own with coffee filters! To start, learners decorated their filters with markers. Then we sprayed them ever so lightly with water so that the colors bled together. The final step was to spray them with a bit of starch so that they were stiff when dry. It helped to dry them on something to keep the shape. (I used empty large yogurt containers.)

spraying with water

drying after sprayed with starch