The 4th, 5th and 6th grade Art students created totem poles for their sculpture project. We started the designs by looking at examples of totem poles from the Northwest Native Americans and their history. The students sketched out their ideas on newsprint. I had a large box that we cut up into smaller pieces to form the "tree" part of the design. The students wet the cardboard under running water to make it pliable. We taped it around our pole (that we got from Blackburn Manufacturing) to shape it and let it dry. The students paper mached paper towels to the cardboard to form a bark texture. The next step was to take a paper mache pre-made mask and wet it down. It was laid over the on the pole and left to dry in place to shape it to the pole. The mask was hot-glued to the tree bark and was now ready for decoration.
6th Grade-Norman's
Colton's
Jeslynn's
River's
Jessica's
Trinity's
Donovan's
Riley's
Starting to paint the mask a tree brown.
Applying gold highlights after the mask has been painted brown.
The students painted the tree bark brown, left it dry and then dry brushed gold paint over it to highlight the bark texture. They paper mached features onto their mask by rolling or scrunching paper towels up and taping them in place to form the features. They applied several layers of paper mache (paper dipped in glue and water) over the features to form the skin. And their masks were ready for decoration.
4th, 5th and 6th grade students were ready to give their masks a base coat of paint. After that they could let their imaginations run wild. Students were allowed to use paint, glitter, colored sand, feathers and beads to decorate their mask.
Third Grade Totems
Taylor's
Austin's
Chloe's
Emma's
Riddick's
Sara's
Trissa's
Callie's
Lauren's
Jaidyn's
Sonni's
Gage's
Samantha's
Alejandro's
The wet cardboard was taped to the pole to shape it while it dried.
The pole was stood on end to store it.
The blank paper mache face mask
The mask was wet down and taped in place to shape it.
Before and after being shaped.
Side view shows how the mask lays better on the pole.
The 3rd grade class took a little different route to create their mask. They dissolved tissues in a glue/water mix to create a paper pulp that they laid on the mask form to form their features. Instead of painting their masks they paper mached colored, tissue paper over the mask to color it. After it dried the students used metallic markers to zentangle the colored areas. Tissue paper hair finished their designs.
Click on the photos corners to view their masks and how they were created.
2016 Totem Poles
Mrs. Shoe
Nov 17, 2015
Wow! Excellent job, elementary and Mrs. Heithoff. Thanks for sharing.
Paula
Nov 24, 2015
These are great! So creative and very unique! Thanks for sharing these in our building, too!