Lesson Idea :: Mehndi Hand Sculptures **Updated with Student Work** :: World Art Study

I promised this to you last week when I presented the lesson project idea of Mehndi Hand Sculptures and today I have the completed student work for you! This has been one of the most successful project endeavors of the Interactive Art History class in the (now) four years that I taught the class and I am seriously proud of how the students have done with this even with it only being the first time trying it. And? This is the second major project idea that I have done with Plaster of Paris so perhaps I have a signature medium for myself? I mean... does that even exist? Well, whatever, here is one more art education idea where Plaster of Paris is quite handy. *pun intended*

I feel like this is a great way to do the art of Zen Doodling and making it that much more challenging and impressive since it applies designs to a three dimensional surface. Some of the most interesting of designs were students who really attempted to depart from the minimum of simply sculpting the hand and then applying designs. The hands that were gestural were incredibly impressive and the students who attempted to add color to their hands - which made them decidedly less Mehndi in style - were even more successful overall. There were creative risks that some of the students endeavored to take and I am very proud of them for that alone. 

This project held student interest from start to finish and I helped to keep them invested by encouraging them to make their design work as densely packed as possible. I did not discourage the use of color and while classic Mehndi designs have a sort of natural feminine flair to it that might have turned the guys off, I encouraged the guys to think of tribal design work instead of things that were floral in nature.

I will definitely be doing this project idea again and now that I have one round of experience with it I fully intend to try and raise the bar next year. I am already researching and working on how that will happen so watch out for me next Spring when it's time (again) for the Interactive Art History class. And if you do this project idea with your classes? Let me know! I love seeing how much better and different things look beyond my classroom.

Lesson Idea :: Mehndi Hand Sculpture - World Art study

This lesson idea originated from two different sources that I combined into one workable one for the high school art classroom. They are the following...

Dick Blick's very intriguing Mehndi Art Gloves lesson plan for multicultural art studies

A pin from Pinterest that makes the Dick Blick idea three-dimensional and, in turn, more interesting I think. 

I have been wanting to do this project for a good while after initially seeing it on Dick Blick but I couldn't bring myself to do it because I didn't like how the design work was on gloves which would essential leave the finished project flat and deflated. I don't remember when I stumbled upon the possible solution from pinterest (see above) but I was really excited about it because it really seemed to combined Dick Blick's idea with something ensured a (literally) solid product in the end.

Doing some backwards planning and visual deconstruction, I figured that plaster of paris would work very well to fill the glove. The question remained of how I would end up doing it because, based on my experience of working with plaster, I knew it wouldn't just be so easy to just pour wet plaster in and be able to call it done. I did about two trial runs very quickly by myself before I did it in class and took lots of mental notes and then I did an abbreviated demo for the Interactive Art History class. They previously worked with plaster of paris for the cave art project idea so that really helped them to know what to expect with the process required for this project.

Below is a video of the sculpting stage of this project where I was working with the plaster after it was poured into the glove and was starting to set and after the video (scroll down), you can see some picture of the students doing it themselves. Ideally you want to pair them up because four hands work best in order to make one finished sculpted hand. Kind of not totally efficient but... well.... I haven't figured out a better way than this so far.

 

And here is a picture of a sculpted hand that is finished that a student is now applying their mehndi line design onto the glove with Sharpie Ultra-Fine pen...

Because the students are all still working on this project, I don't have any finished work to show you but based on the time schedule that we are keeping, I suspect I can show you some finished work some time next week, so keep checking back to see some finished work!

Tomorrow I will show you the quick follow-up video to the above where I show you how to clean up dried plaster. [Updated: Finished student work can be accessed HERE via this link!]