Taking Advantage of Spring

Technically spring began about a week ago, though it did snow since then and they were predicting more for today.  But today's snow missed this part of the state, so I was able to do something outdoors.  I would have preferred a sunnier and warmer day (today was upper thirties), but I'm running out of time.  I'm teaching 3D Design at one of my schools this semester and one of the projects I traditionally do is what I think of as my caveman project.  Having very little experience with a 3D class (just the one I took in 1987, which was more like a beginning sculpture class, and I was told not to do most of that stuff), I decided to go back to the beginning of art.  I figured that was what was being done in caves.  What sculpture has been found from that era is carved items, often the subject and design related to the shape of the material being carved.  Like animals posed and positioned to fit on a particular piece of antler or rock.  So for this project the students are only allowed to use natural materials and must make their idea fit what they use.  I always take advantage of my location and easy access to beaches to provide shells as a starting point.

Because of the ancient nature of the project, I would prefer to do this early in the semester and let the idea feed into later projects.  Unfortunately, we had a few feet of snow on top of everything for a few months, which would have made it difficult for the student to find any natural materials of their own.  But the months of accumulated snow is gone now, so I figure it's safe.  Plus, I'm running out of semester and I can't put this off any longer.  I have some leftover shells from the last time I taught it, but I wanted a bigger supply, so I briefly visited the beach up the road from the Studio and collected a few dozen more.  Going for bigger ones when I could find them, since my supply had been mostly small pieces.  As I said, not really spring weather, so the gulls and I had the beach to ourselves.