SCULPTURE
SKETCHES
IN BLOOM
Betsy DiJulio
The best artistic challenges open students’ eyes, hearts, and minds by combining both formal and conceptual
concerns. A temporary exhibition
of African Shona sculpture entitled
Mutambo! (Celebrate!) at the Nor-
folk Botanical Gardens in Norfolk,
Virginia, inspired such a challenge.
However, the project’s parameters are
applicable to virtually any group of
objects.
Museum Assignments
On a crisp October day, my forty
art foundations students fanned out
across the Norfolk Botanical Gardens,
each group led by a volunteer artist/art
educator from our community. The
observational drawing assignment was
simple: make one large, fully mod-
eled drawing of the sculpture of your
choice; make additional contour draw-
ings of other sculptures; and make one
botanical study.
The sculptures were ideal objects
to draw, not only because of their
cultural connection to Zimbabwe and
their obvious cross-disciplinary con-
nection to history, but also because
of their simple, yet expressive, forms.
I encouraged students to fill their
pages by overlapping drawings, mak-
ing drawings in the negative spaces of
other drawings, turning their sketch-
books ninety degrees between draw-
ings, and so forth.
Dual Challenges
After their observational drawing
assignment, I presented students with
two consecutive challenges. The first
was largely formal: translate their
modeled rendering into a large black-
and-white charcoal drawing on gray
paper.
The second challenge was both
formal and conceptual, as it played
with the notion of “content” in art
and the “contents” of a cardboard box.
I asked students to combine several of
their drawings of the sculptures with
their botanical study on corrugated
cardboard and link them all through
a theme stenciled onto their support.
Media was limited to permanent
marker, graphite, white paint, coffee,
