NOW WE ARE COOKIN' WITH GAS!

Meaning, of course, that things are really cooking in the art lab......with electricity.......specifically the clay pieces. We have had several of our 4th and 5th grade classes finish up their clay projects, using paint and mod podge. They are really turning out beautifully.

Above you will see 4th grade clay plaques, with open negative spaces, where the students have woven with wire and beads. Below, there are swimming sharks and jumping dolphins, completed by our 5th graders.

Our 4th graders have also had some fun designing their own form of storyteller after being motivated by the Pueble Storytellers that they observed. Here you even see and alien storyteller, passing down a story to the little alien children. Also as woman telling her cats a story. This, of course, lined up with telling a narative, which some of them had for the FCAT writes. Maybe they could actually imaging the story that these storytellers are telling. Hmmmmm.....

There is still a lot more to come as the students are finishing up with paint. The seahorses and Marlins that were shown in an earlier post, are getting ready to be finished. Stay tuned to see what comes out next from the CCE ART LAB!

Clay Marlins

The next 5th grade class I worked with made marlins out of clay. These also turned out great! The most difficult part was probably the nose/snout of the marlin, if it got to thin it would probably break.

The students did a very good job scoring and slipping the clay together and I also think as a whole their craftsmanship and attention to fine detail was above average, there are a lot of great looking marlins!

I will see this class today and we will make bases to hold up the marlins. Mrs. Snead had a neat idea last week that 'mounting' our trophy fish on a wood placque would be kinda fun for a base, but we just didnt have an opportunity to try it out. We will make the base out of clay, but perhaps we can still toy with the idea of placques later on.

Clay Seahorses

All of the 5th grade classes have been working with clay, each class Mrs. Snead was doing a different sea creature to keep things interesting and to help keep the classes separated.

I took over all the classes this week and had to step up to the plate in working with clay. I thought doing a seahorse would be a neat idea so both Mrs. Snead and I got to work in trying to figure out the best way to make a seahorse out of clay.

I knew it would be challenging and I am glad the class I got to work with was small so I was able to get around to everyone quicker that needed help. As challenging as making the seahorse was, the 5th grade class really stepped up to the plate and their pieces turned out great! I was really impressed with how most of them turned out.

It was difficult because we created the body using a slab technique, and we had to continue to work with the clay in our hands so it wouldn't become flat. The body of a seahorse also is covered with a spine like texture that required a lot of skill to mimic in clay. We also created bases to hold up the seahorses, which was also a more challenging style base because the seahorse is kind of thin, but tall. Luckily through the whole process Mrs. Snead was right there to help both me and the students out if we needed it. We did perform a few "surgeries" on seahorses that broke, but its very easy to reattach clay while its still wet by simply scoring and slipping the pieces together.

I am really pleased with how the seahorses turned out and very proud of the students and myself!

Clay Workshops at the Cummer

This past Planning Day I was priviledged to be able to teach three clay workshops to fellow Elementary Art Teachers on using the "Hollow Egg" technique of clay handbuilding. What an honor, as my colleagues are amoung the BEST art teachers in the state of Florida. I hardly felt adequate to teach them anything at all. However, in each of the three workshops that I gave, I had many teachers thank me for showing this method as they began to get many great ideas on how to teach this to their students. Wow!!!! Of course, I didn't walk away without new ideas myself! Just goes to show that you can NEVER stop learning. The teachers created the cutest, wildest, and most beautiful pieces using this technique. It was just fun watching the ideas move from the mind to the clay.

Of course, we couldn't stop at just teaching the technique, we had to find all the ways that this project tied in with the various academic subjects. When we introduce clay, we have to talk about how important clay has been in learning about ancient cultures. Because it does not breakdown quickly (not even after 12,000 years) archaeologists are able to learn so much from what is painted on the clay AND what is found inside ( sometimes grains or ashes). Of course, that moves right into how clay is made, naturally, from disintegrating rocks, and water. On to different processes that clay goes through to go from a lump of earth to a solid piece of pottery. Math jumps in their when we have to estimate halves, and then put them together into a whole. I could probably go on and on. Not to mention it is all A LOT OF FUN!