One of the classes I taught this summer at Cheekwood was a class called Wild World of Art for 10-12 year olds. I had a great class, and they worked really hard this week. One of their favorite projects was the topiary project that I found on the Dick Blick website. We used a wire mesh and wire to sculpt the form of the topiary. Next, the students glued squares of tissue paper to the wire form. When the form is covered with tissue paper, plaster was poured into terra cotta pots and a wooden dowel rod was placed into the plaster before it had set. Using wire and hot glue, the tissue paper covered form was attached to the dowel rod (after plaster set of course) and brown string is then wrapped around the dowel in order to simulate wood bark. When we were finished, the students were able to take their topiaries outside and choose a place in the gardens at Cheekwood to "install" their topiaries, and take pictures.
