Clay projects Fall 2019

Clay is always such a rewarding project!  I love seeing what my students come up with for their clay creations. Nothing beats opening up a glaze fired kiln to see all those bright shiny colors!  6th and 8th grade made coil pots and were allowed to decorate or shape them into whatever they choose, while 7th grade made pinch pots into a closed form that they turned into animals, shapes, and other unique objects.  Some of them included balls of clay on the inside so that they make a beautiful rattle once fired. As much as I wish I could keep them in my display case, the students are so excited to take them home as soon as possible!

Song bird collage!

Where did the summer go?!  Our first projects of the school are well under way and they are looking fabulous!  We began the semester with painted paper collages inspired by an artist in Texas, Lisa Morales.  She creates paper painted and mixed media collages that are amazing and so beautiful.  You can check out her work here: https://www.lisamoralesmixedmedia.com/

 Painted paper collage worked well since so many students are still coming and going, schedules are still be adjusted, and other things like that.  We painted paper for a few days, using our plain white drawing paper, and also some printed pieces for a variety of textures for the feathers. If students missed one of the painted paper days, it didn't matter since I cut all of those sheets up into small squares for everyone to use.

We prepared our background for our song birds by painting with a tempera wash.  Students were amused by the history of tempera and the fact that it was once made with egg yolks!  I assured them that our version of tempera was egg free. :)  Here's a few pics of what they're creating so far.

 Painting our papers...

Dry and ready to cut...

Ready for collage!

Art Club Origami

We have started clubs the 3rd quarter, and my club is art!  Big surprise there! :)  For our first project, we've been working on these amazing origami sculptures.  I used to do these in 5th grade when I taught elementary art, but it was a tad difficult for that age.  6-8 grade level is perfect for it.  We started by making the cube, which uses 6 of the same unit folds.  It was a review for many of them, since I taught at two of the feeder schools for this middle school, so that was pretty neat.  Some of them were able to help the others who had never done the cube before, and we were able to quickly move on to our 12 piece sculptures.