An armature is a structure that holds up a sculpture. Some materials will not hold up by themselves. Paper mache is too wet and shapeless to stand alone. It needs to be wrapped around a form (balloon, wire, face or junk sculpture) in order to take on that shape. The 6th Grade Arts Alive class used armatures of bent wire when making their people sculptures. They shaped wire to reproduce gesture drawings of classmates who posed for them. After contructing the armature, they thickened it by wrapping the wire with newspaper, and then paper macheing over the newspaper for a strong finishing layer. Students gave their characters clothing, props and scenery to further the story and to create strong personalities in their art.
