Relief In All Forms

Mrs. Biere’s art fundamentals class makes relief sculptures out of clay

Two+freshmen+work+on+their+relief+sculptures+in+art+fundamentals.+

Elizabeth Hamby

Two freshmen work on their relief sculptures in art fundamentals.

Monica Reyes, Reporter

Stress. It is a constant, everyday thing that most of us as teenagers face. But how do you deal with your stress? Do you paint? Draw? Listen to music? Workout? Mrs. Biere’s art fundamentals class has been working on a “relief project” that helps get out all of those stressful feelings. 

In Mrs. Biere’s class, students have been working on making a sculpture out of clay. They choose a picture of someone that has some form of significance to them. Then they print the picture and it is used with a transfer technique to be transferred onto the clay. From there they learn how to carve the details from the image into the clay. 

Sophomore Peter Kamburov chose the late rapper, Juice WRLD, as his inspiration. 

“I chose Juice WRLD as my inspiration. He was super diverse and made a bunch of different music. He was super positive all of the time and that is really cool to me,” Kamburov said. “This project definitely took time. I wouldn’t say that it was hard to do since I really enjoyed the project. But it definitely took some work, I will say that. Out of the whole year, this project was my favorite. I got to choose what I wanted to do and how I got to do it. That’s why I liked it so much.” 

Junior Halima Larhdiri chose a picture of her grandmother for the project. 

I chose a picture of me and my grandma that I took this summer when I was in Morocco visiting family. I chose this picture because naturally, I love my grandma, and I figured it’d be pretty neat to carve the picture into the clay, Larhdiri expressed. “I really enjoyed this project. It was cool to make these pictures come to life using the clay.”

This is the first time that Mrs. Biere tried out this project. She thinks that the students responded well to the project and did a fantastic job. These sculptures are going to be on display here at Liberty, permanently.

“I like to try new and exciting projects/lessons for my students to keep them interested and engaged in art.  This project was a great way to teach art fundamentals students to work with clay. What excited the students was getting to use their phones (we all know they love their camera and selfies).  They turned their love for selfies and photos into a cool clay project that will last a lifetime. In addition to working on this project for art fundamentals, we are toying with the idea of making an installation of the ceramic tiles to go on display permanently here, at Liberty.”