ART for 1170

Just out of the kiln, this years first batch of clay owls...stay tuned for more!

All three schools are finished with their owls. Seems like they go on forever but three schools and 200 4th graders takes a lot of time. For some crazy reason I had three grade levels in clay at the same time. The kilns were running non stop! Ha, I know better but I just love working with clay and it is a favorite of every student. I think it's because they get so much paper and pencil in class that they crave 3D stuff.

Dragons! I was so surprised how excited my students were to draw dragons. I printed a few examples and had a powerpoint up to give them inspiration.  We did a draft in pencil, outlined in permanent marker then I'm using up some old watercolors before I open the liquid watercolors. Wow, really excited how these turned out!

This lesson is a 4th grade favorite.  Since my classes are only 30 minutes we spend one week practicing with modeling clay then the next week we create the eyes, beak, wings,  and feet.  The third week I give each student a slab of clay and a PVC pipe. They cut an oval shape and then roll the top of one end over the PVC and attach their parts. I think you could use wooden dowels but the PVC makes it easier to slip the pipe out as the last step.  I also have clay stamps and pinecones for them to add texture.  Once we glaze I will add more pictures but I wanted to show the before steps now.

One of my personal favorite mediums, but a difficult medium for young artists especially those that have been working in tempera and used to "Loading a brush with lots of paint."  I'm having a love hate relationship with these lighthouses. I've taught them twice now and I'm looking for ways to improve. Points to remember *VERY light pencil drawing *Don't paint two areas at the same time that will touch * Use tiny amounts of paint and layer and layer *TAKE YOUR TIME!

I got this lesson from an old issue of Arts and Activities or SchoolArts, two of my favorite magazines. This is a nice lesson for teaching variety and repetition.  In the past I had the students create an organic shape, then divide it into sections to use repetitive symbols. This year I had the students use ruler to create pipes. We even went on a field trip to the boiler room and saw all the pipes in the building. When the students are finished they cut out the design and then use a stapler to hold different pipes to POP UP over black paper.

Thanks to Linda D. for this lesson. A few summers ago I scored dozens of PVC tubes at a garage sale that work perfectly for clay projects.  I give every student a small slab of clay. They place the PVC pipe about 3" from the top and roll the clay over the pipe.  Then they add eyes, beak, wings and feet.  When they are finished forming the students carefully pull out the pipe leaving a nice tube to feed yarn through for hanging.