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Grade: 2 and up (great for middle and highschool)
Age: 8 and up

Activity Summary:

You can use regular household drywall as a relief sculpture material. Find out how, here.

A construction site serves as art inspiration,
all you need is a hard hat and imagination.
Believe it or not, drywall can be made,
into wonderful sculpture that never will fade.
It can be transformed with the greatest of ease
into carvings of faces and horses and trees.
All you need is some water, some sticks and some glue
You just won’t believe all the things you can do.

Objectives:

• Students will learn about relief sculpture and architectural elements.

• Students will talk about Egyptian heiroglyphics (picture words) and relief sculptures that can be seen on Roman and Greek structures.

• Students will create a relief sculpture using drywall.

• Students will learn to appreciate the art created not only by them, but by others as well.

What You Need:

• Drywall. (12"x12" or smaller)
• Water and spray bottles (empty glass cleaner bottles are great)
• Popsicle sticks, pencils, glue and paint if you have it.

What You Do:

1. Make the drywall damp and peel the top layer of paper off. You can soak the drywall in a shallow sink of warm water for about 2-5 minutes or you can spray the surface with water until the paper peels away.
2. Remember, the wetter the drywall, the more easily it will break or crack.
3. Once you have the paper all or mostly removed, you can carve directly into the drywall using a popsicle stick. You may choose to outline an image in pencil first. If the drywall is too hard, soften it by spraying water on it.
4. When you carve, make sure you don’t go too deep because the drywall will lose its strength in areas that are too thin.
5. When you have your design fully carved you can either leave it as is or paint it using whatever paints you have available to you.

More Examples:

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