Build a castle! - Recycling renaissance - art project

Arts & Activities, June, 2003 by Cynthia Cox Farris

Every year, the students in all grades of my elementary school do a papier-mache project. In planning the lessons, I look back to see what each grade has done before, and try to dream up something different and special. Each year they build on the skills learned in the past, until they become quite the papier-mache experts!

I find that three-dimensional experiences provide the students with an enormous range of technical building skills as well as opportunities to be wonderfully creative in their own personal ways. In our school, the children can hardly wait for papier-mache time! I think it is the one thing they all love best.

Having done birds one year and animals another, I thought that something architectural would be a refreshing change. But what would give them the opportunity to be dramatic and deeply imaginative? Castles! This seemed like a tall order to me, but at the same time I felt a daring bravado that we could do anything.

To warm up, I introduced the fourth-graders to castles by having them do watercolor paintings of castles. They enjoyed looking at my reference material, but also dove into their imaginations and came up with amazing decorative castle ideas. In doing this they refreshed their memories about towers, drawbridges, walls and turrets, and conjured up thoughts of knights, damsels, dragons and kings.

With our designs on paper, it was on to the papier-mache castle. Papier-mache projects are created with four basic steps: (1) Build the construction (2) Apply glued paper strips to the construction; (3) Paint, using tempera or acrylic; and (4) Glue on finishing details and decorative materials.

For the construction we needed a large collection of corrugated cardboard, cans, oatmeal boxes, cardboard tubes and smaller boxes. With masking tape, scissors and oaktag, we were ready to go. The first step was to build a hill with cliffs plunging down to the sea or fields below. Students selected a large corrugated cardboard piece for the base and a smaller piece for the top of the hill. They trimmed the edges to create odd or interesting shapes, and then propped the smaller shape up on several cans or boxes to lift it about three or four inches from the base. The structure was well-taped to secure it.

To form the sides or cliffs, the students tore off large pieces of brown paper towel and smeared lots of glue on both sides. They draped these wet towels from the top level cardboard down to the larger base, letting the natural folds and wrinkles form the rocky, craggy surface of the cliffs. What a job! (Because of all the glue, this draped paper will dry quite hard, and will be easy to paint.) That messy job was enough for the first art period!

Next were the towers: Oatmeal boxes, cardboard tubes of varying lengths and assorted cans and boxes were chosen for towers. Students were encouraged to choose sizes and shapes which would fit nicely on the top of their "hill," and to arrange them thoughtfully, some close together, and some with spaces between. Half circles of oaktag were used to form varied heights of conical roofs for the round towers. Notched cardboard strips could be taped around the top of the oatmeal box for battlements.

I asked the students to consider the courtyard space, and stimulated thought about guard houses, archways, entrance ways, lower courtyards, moats and drawbridges. To gain access to the castle on the hill, students devised ways to add roadways. I encouraged them to invent ways to make things and gave lots of time for experimenting. A few students thought of adding a horse and rider on the roadway, and added these with meticulous detail work in papier-mache.

Once the construction was completed, the castles were neatly covered with one layer of papier-mache strips (brown paper towel strips are ideal for this step). Papier-mache glue should be applied with the hands to both sides of each strip. The strips are then pressed onto the surface carefully, without wrinkles. Some of the strips need to be torn quite small to get into all the narrow places.

Time to paint! Students devised fanciful color schemes-for their castles, and gained skills in mixing shades and tints. Details were saved until all the larger background areas had been painted and dried. I encouraged beautiful windows, decorative edges and suggestive lines indicating stone work. Some students added more bushes and flowers with colored tissue paper, or painted a vine growing up a tower. Flags and pennants were attached to toothpicks, and inserted into the tops of some of the rooftops.

Now finished, every castle held its own distinctive style! Some were light and airy in pastel colors, others dramatic and scary in browns and grays with dungeons at the lower level. It was obvious that each castle contained the fantasies and dreams of its youthful architect.

Without realizing it, each artist had learned advanced techniques for papier-mache construction, gluing, painting and decorating, as well as concepts of design. All the castles appeared in the annual Art Show, along with the fanciful castle paintings. It was quite a wonderful sight.