Description

A high school in Germany partners up with a local nursery school to sculpt Haring-inspired scultpures from stone.

Objective

Students learn about the life and work of Keith Haring.

Students of different age collaborate on a project that emphasizes teamwork and cooperation.

Students tranform an image into a three-dimensional form.

Students learn how to carve stone.

Materials

Stones for carving [we recommend soft stones, ie: sandstone]
Stone carving tools (hammers, chisels, graters, files, saws, tarps...)
Colored chalk
Paint
Painting supplies (buckets of water, brushes, paper towels, palettes...)
Polyeurothane

Procedure

We visited the nursery school in a small village right near our high school. The village is called Pünderich. For a long time the leader of this school has asked us to make an art project with her children, so we came up with this!

Workteams: one 8th grader and one kindergartener.

We came up with our own designs inspired by Keith Haring's art.

Each team selected a motif that they liked, and drew an enlarged variation of the image on to their chosen stone with some colored chalk.

The 8th grader sawed out the rough form from the chalk outline.

Then each team used chisels, graters, and files to arrive at the final shape of their design.

The stones were then painted with rich, bright colors, just like Keith Haring used!

After the paint was completely dry, they were coated with a waterproof primer [polyeurothane] by adults.

Finally, the students took their sculptures home!