Cool Clay for Cool Days

Hi Art Spotters! I'm doing a little Blogging Catch-up today, and thought I'd take you back to chilly December when it was time for the 3rd and 4th graders to start their clay projects.  I chose snowmen for the 3rd grade classes and igloos for the 4th grade classes.  The students were SO excited to begin....and so was I!

We decided to just focus on the face and top-hat for the 3rd graders snowmen.  Students rolled out their clay using rolling pins until it was about a quarter of an inch thick.  They then laid a template onto the clay and traced around it, removing the extra clay as they went. To make the face of the snowmen, students rolled clay spheres to look like pieces of coal for the eyes and mouth.  They made a clay slab and cut out a triangle shape for the carrot nose.  I demonstrated how to use the score and slip technique to attach the eyes, nose, and mouth onto the face of the snowman.

Here's what the snowmen looked like before they were loaded into the kiln to be fired.

 Once the snowmen were fired, students glazed them using white, black, and orange glaze purchased with a grant from the Grandville Education Foundation.  The final touch was adding a festive ribbon sash across the top-hats.  The results were fantastic!

4th graders were also really successful with their igloo clay projects.  We started by creating the snowy ground for our igloos to sit on by flattening out a piece of clay like a pancake. To make the igloo, students created a pinch pot and then attached it upside-down onto the ground piece.  The front entrance of the igloo was made by cutting a long rectangle from a slab of clay and then curving it into a "U" shape and attaching it to the front of the dome.  Student carved lines into the dome and front entrance of the igloo to look like bricks of ice.  If students had time after constructing the igloo, they could use any remaining clay to make snow balls, snowmen, and penguins!

Here are some pictures of the igloos after the first firing and before the glaze firing. 

I still have to work on getting some pics of the finished igloos after the glaze firing, so stay tuned for a later post of those!

Thanks for stopping by here at The Art Spot!

-Miss O'Donnell

Falling for Clay

Although it's already almost the end of the school year, I am just now getting around to posting about our amazing Fall themed clay projects!  It feels like yesterday that the first chilly breezes were bringing in the Fall weather.  After living in sunny Phoenix for the past three years, I was looking forward to unpacking my scarves and sweaters and warming up some spiced cider!  Since it was time for 2nd and 5th graders to learn about clay building, I thought what better than pumpkins and colorful leaves to welcome in the Fall season!

2nd graders created their pumpkins by making two small pinch pots and attaching them together to make a hollow sphere. Students were already familiar with pinch pot construction from a project they made in 1st grade.  We reviewed how to attach two pieces of wet clay together by first scoring (scratching lines into both sides of clay) and slipping (adding water to the rough scored areas).  A hole was poked in the bottom of the spheres to allow for air to escape during firing.  We then made a stem by coiling the clay, and a leaf by using slab construction (flattening out the clay like a pancake) and then cutting out a leaf shape.  The pumpkins were fired and then glazed.  The glaze was purchased thanks to a grant from the Grandville Education Foundation!  As a final touch, students added a vine by curling a pipe cleaner and gluing it to the top of the pumpkin.

Here are the amazing results!

5th graders made Fall leaves using a clay slab technique.  They first rolled out their clay to about a quarter of an inch thick.  Then, they set a large plastic leaf onto their clay and traced around it.  By pressing the fake leaf into the soft clay, the veins of the leaf were imprinted onto the clay for a realistic effect. Finally they flipped over their leaves and laid them face down onto a smal wad of newspaper.  This curved the leaf and gave it a more organic appearance rather then just a flat look.

Here's a pic of the leaves in the kiln before they were fired.

Once the leaves were fired, students chose two speckled glazes for the front and edges of their leaves.  Thanks to a grant from the Grandville Education Foundation we were able to purchase beautiful Colorburst glazes that worked perfectly for the Fall leaves.

Here's how they turned out!

As you can see, both the 2nd and 5th graders had gorgeous results with their Fall clay projects.  Stay tuned to see how the 3rd and 4th graders do with their Winter themed clay projects!

Thanks again for joining me here at The Art Spot, see you next time.

-Miss O'Donnell

Colorful Kandinsky Circles

Hi everyone, and thanks for checking back with me here at the Art Spot!

This weekend was a busy one with our Art at the Mall show, so I'm a little late in getting this post up about what my 2nd graders have been up to!  If you'd like to see pictures of our art show, click on "Displaying Art" in the column to the right!

2nd graders at Grand View, East, and West have been learning about Russian painter Wassily Kansinsky.  Kandinsky was one of the first artists to paint in an Abstract way.  Abstract means that there are no recognizable objects in the picture, and instead are just a combination of colors, lines, and shapes. Kandinsky loved to experiment with mixing colors, and one of his most famous paintings was made of all different colors painted in circle patterns!

Here's a pic of that painting:

Concentric Circles, Wassily Kandinsky

We started these paintings by dividing our papers into smaller squares.  To do this easily without using rulers, we simply folded our papers in half the long way, then in half again the short way, and once more the short way.  When we unfolded our papers we had eight smaller squares!  Then we drew a small circle in the center of each of those squares, we drew a larger circle around the small circles, and finally one more even bigger circle around those!  Each square now looked like it had a target in the center of it!

Now it was time to paint.  Each student got only 3 colors to use for painting.  These were the Primary colors, blue, red, and yellow.  Then we mixed these colors together to make 3 more colors!  These were the Secondary colors, orange, purple, and green.

Finally I gave students black and white to mix tints and shades.  Tints are colors mixed with white.  Shades are colors mixed with black.

Here are some of the wonderful results!

Bulletin board display at Grand View

Thanks for joining me here at the Art Spot and for checking out the 2nd graders beautiful Kandinsky inspired circle paintings!

-Miss O'Donnell