Umlauf Sculpture Garden

Boogs picked out a book at the library this week called The Naked Lady by Ian Wallace. It tells the story of a sculptor who moves in next door to Tom and his parents. Tom takes a "welcome neighbor" raspberry pie next door and sees a statue in the middle of a field. He gasped, "She's naked." The owner of the property informs Tom that she is not naked, she is nude. She is a piece of art. The artist has many other sculptures on his property of fruits, vegetables, and animals. The artist becomes a close friend to the family. Tom is so inspired by the artist's work that he eventually grows up to be an artist, too. The author, Ian Wallace, stated that this is his own story. He expressed his art by becoming an illustrator for children's books.

This book inspired me to take Boogs to a sculpture garden in our community. I made Boogs a story themed lunch for our adventure.  In his Laptop lunchbox: cheese statue on almond butter & jelly sandwich, berries for the berry pie they shared, taffy for sculpting and a salad with dressing.

Charles Umlauf was an artist, sculptor and teacher. He taught at the University of Texas in Austin for 40 years. In 1985, he donated his home, studio and 168 of his art pieces to the city of Austin. This was later turned into the Umlauf Sculpture Garden.

Boogs really enjoyed our exploration of Umlauf's work. I created a 12 picture scavenger sheet to take with us. Boogs searched for each of the statues, located their name and what material they were made of. Umlauf used bronze, cast stone, aluminum, African mohogany, stoneware, plaster, redwood, terra cotta, hydrastone, alabaster, marble, and Texas limestone. He sculpted animals, families, religious figures, mythological figures, and nudes. Umlauf Sculpture Garden is a small but wonderful place to explore. Even on a hot Texas afternoon, there was plenty of shade.

 Icarus was Boogs' favorite sculpture in the garden.

 

Boogs was very intrigued by the size of The Diver because he was exactly the same size as Boogs and he appeared to like swimming! Boogs decided that The Diver must also be 7-years-old.

 

 Same size feet.

 Same arm length.

Boogs noticed that The Poetess had bigger hands and smaller feet than I do. He said, "I think if she stood up she would fall right over because she is top heavy."

After we explored the entire grounds, I asked Boogs to choose his favorite sculpture to sketch. He chose Icarus. It was so sweet to watch him find the perfect shady spot to make his own art.

I asked Boogs to write a few sentences about why he picked Icarus as his favorite sculpture.

We brought along some taffy to use to make our own sculptures inspired by Umlauf's work. Boogs thought is was fun to sculpt with taffy. Especially since he was able to eat his creation. Here is my taffy sculpture of The Poetess.

Boogs told me he didn't think I would like his choice for his taffy sculpture inspiration. He asked, "Can I try to do a sculpture of the Reclining Nude? It is not because she is naked, she is nude like the book said, not naked. I just find that sculpture really interesting."

We had a fun afternoon together.

I linked this post to:
Highhill Education
Crafts a la mode
After School Linky
Lunchbox Dad: Throwback Thursday link up 




Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post or go to My Story Themed Lunches board on Pinterest. I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by.