Creating Art in 3D

Fourth grade students recently learned how to create art using 3D printing in Lower School visual arts teacher Margaret Synan-Russell’s class. Each student created their own cartoon character, then made a comic strip featuring their character. The students then sculpted small clay models of their creations, making the characters 3D. Debra Hernanz taught the students how to use Tinkercad on their iPads in Tech class, which enabled the students to make specifications for the 3D printer to follow to replicate their model. After about an hour of printing, the end result was a small black plastic sculpture of the student’s comic character.

This project walked the students through the process of devising an idea with a pencil sketch, expanding the character through a comic-strip story, seeing the formation of their idea go from 2D to 3D while working in clay, and then a further expansion with the integration of technology. Through this process the students experienced the growth of their first idea through five different modes of art. 

EC3 Operations Manager Jeffrey Sprague taught Margaret how to use the 3D printers and she and Jeffrey are currently printing all of the students’ characters, working on three 3D printers simultaneously. Jeffrey created a space for the printing to happen in the LS art studio. The 3D replicas and the clay models are on display in the glass case in the Upper School main lobby until the end of this week.

Margaret said, “I first became interested in 3D printing when I took a workshop in 2016 with Ed Cecere, Upper School technology coordinator, that introduced me to the fundamentals. Then I really got inspired when I saw that the Oregon College of Arts & Crafts had started doing 3D printing with clay–that lit a fire under me to do it in my class! I’m grateful to Jeffrey for teaching me how to use our printers, and to Debra for teaching the students how to use Tinkercad. This is what I love about OES, that we do these collaborative, cross-departmental projects together. And the students really enjoy seeing their characters come to life.”