Calder Mobile

Hey, while I am gone to Ephesus for the week you are going to be exploring the world of kinetic energy and making your own Calder-like mobile. Alexander Calder (1898 - 1976) was an American sculptor and artist who is credited with inventing the mobile. He discovered a way to create a sculpture that was in constant movement and therefore always changing, making it a dynamic and exciting art form.

Your job this week is to complete your own mobile. A mobile is a type of sculpture that is made up of carefully balanced parts that move. They move, are kinetic, because they respond to the energy in air currents. When your mobiles are completed you will be able to watch them shift from one form to another.

Materials Needed:

1. Cardboard
2. Template
   
3. Stapler
4. Oil Pastel Crayon
   
5. Ball Point Pen
   
6. Scissors
   
7. Acrylic Paint
8. Needle
9. Thread
   

Grade 6 Studio Work

1. Trace your template on the backside of the paper using an oil pastel, you can use the window for this;
   
2. Carefully staple your template to your cardboard;
3. Trace your template using a ballpoint pen
   
4. Cut out the six pieces of your mobile;
5. Keep all of your pieces together using the blue construction paper that the teacher has given you;
   
6. Paint the pieces with acrylic paint. You can use any colours that you like. Be sure to paint one side at a time and allow the side to dry completely before you turn it over to paint the other side;
7. Find the centre of balance for each piece by balancing it on your finger. Lay it flat on your finger until is does not fall off, it will balance perfectly like a see-saw. Mark that point with a pencil;
8. Make two holes in each of your mobile mobile pieces using a needle. One hole just below the top edge of the piece at the balance point and and one hole at the "tail" end of the piece (see the demo board behind my desk);
9. Using thread string all the pieces together;
   
10. Check to see that your mobile is balanced and make any adjustments needed;
    
11. Hang it up in the classroom above our work table.
    

If You Finish Early
Work on your Sock Monkey Portrait