November Clay Creations

Happy November Everyone!

We are on a roll with our clay projects in 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 8th grade this quarter! From clay owls to clay/plaster mold making, to ceramic feathers, I have to say my favorite project has been the clay feather ornaments. I saw them on Pinterest initially and they are really quite simple. 

http://pinterest.com/pin/514606694892702422/

Using a small ball of air dry clay we simply rolled out a long thin oval using our rolling pins over a canvas matt. Then, with a pencil or toothpick we proceeded to cut out a long feather shape and carve in the feather lines. After piercing a hole near the top we draped them over a paint brush to dry....Ispray painted them gold and VOILA!!

I love them. I will be making more of these on my own, but this time I'm going to try oven bake polymer clay for more color and durability-and less crumbly clay bits....

Now to show off 8th grade and their mold making skills!

We began by discuss relief sculpting and reviewing mold making. We proceeded to roll out a clay slab and press objects into the clay, creating a negative mold. Some students preferred to carve their own images...After building 2" walls around the impressions we then mixed and poured plaster of Paris into our molds and waited patiently for the final results....

Finally the next class we removed the clay, tossed into the trash and carefully dusted  off our plaster creations.  Most chose to paint their relief sculptures, some looked nice just white...

8th Grade Metal Relief

I always love to mix up the medium every few lessons, and a unique challenge I find is working with metal-aluminum pans, or metal pie tins. Using a dull pencil or paint brush bottom, the students simply draw into the back of the metal (over a magazine cushion) and watch the lines raise up on the other side. First we looked at 19th century artist James Audubon & his bird studies. After doing a bit of research, they selected an Audubon painting to recreate into their metal pans.

The students were required to show a) clear outlines by continuously pressing over their contour lines, b) 3D relief by rubbing into the spaces of their metal shapes until the area raises with the heat of the metal. Lastly they need to show texture in the image-repeating lines, dots,  etc to create actual raised texture. 8th grade painted a wash of black ink overt their finished pieces and scrubbed away the raised relief with a wire mesh sponge brush for a burnished effect. Here are the results!

                                                  Mason M

                                      Victor E

                                                   Michael

                                                   Ethan

                                                 Brooke

                                          Brielle

                                              Xander

                                            Piper

                                     Giuliana

                                                        Gena

                                              Riley

                                    Paul

                                                          Sarah

                                  Logan

                             Natalie R

                                  Teddy

                              Alejandro

October Tints & Shades!

We have had a very busy and productive October!  6th grade has been doing such an amazing job learning about color value-adding black and white to a single color to find the range of light and dark. We discussed the term monochromatic, and after completing our moonlight value paintings we used our iPads to create a monochromatic landscape using layers of light and dark. They are simple but beautiful! We learned that pale values give a landscape a sense of depth and distance (atmospheric perspective) while the darker shades create the closeness of the foreground below.

Here are some samples of what we created! 

And of course a few final results from the Moonlight Owl series....Stunning!