Slip Casting

Today the junior high students dove into the clay unit by experimenting with plaster molds.  Molds for clay are a fun tool for creating shapes or designs that could not be accomplished with the usual hand building techniques.  The process is pretty simple.  I have many different plaster molds I have collected.  Slip is just clay that is watered down.  The students pour the slip into the casts and “voila” there it is. As the unit progresses and students better understand this technique, the goal then becomes to incorporate the molds into their hand built or wheel thrown sculptures in order to create original work. ❤️🎨🔔

Expressing your Emotions through Art

This week was hard because of the presidential election.  We have such deep thinking students and the election results brought up a lot of anger in some.  We can’t expect our children never to be angry.   Instead I try to encourage them to express it in non-hurtful ways. Some of my personal favorite ways of dealing with hard feelings is through play, storytelling and art. Having healthy outlets to experience anger  is an important part of being a resilient person. 

Emotions enable us to embrace life and so when they arrive in the art room I try to encourage the kids to let them flow into their art. Emotions enliven us and fuel our creativity.  In the art room students are encouraged to experience emotions directly through expressive arts media.  Art is a global language. Art permeates the deepest part of us and transforms pain into beauty. 

There are so many great resources for people who want to get more into art therapy but here is one I like:  https://youtu.be/BN2rTaFUlxs ❤️🎨🔔 

More “Art Flow”

Today I started the morning talking again about art flow. I showed the kids this great little YouTube video that describes it well. The kids really got it and started pushing themselves to new heights. Some of the boys started to make stop motion films. I was so impressed with their abilities to figure out new technology. As soon as they finish I’ll post them for you see. For now here are some pictures of the class “in the zone” today.

And here is the video about flow I showed: 

Enjoy! ❤️🎨🔔

Video of Art Flow

When the kids are all really engaged in a project the classroom goes into a different zone. I call it art-flow it doesn’t always happen that all are equally engaged at once. But when I do notice it I really try to point it out so that the kids start to recognize it also. It’s hard to get good footage of Art Flow but I was able to capture the magic this week with the clay projects. It can be a bit hard to have meaningful discussions with the kids while videotaping, so I just put music over it to make it seem more jazzy. 

If you are interested in volunteering I always need help. If you like getting your hands dirty you can do that or you could do techy stuff like help make more videos with me and the kids.  Well for now hope you enjoy this. ❤️🎨🔔

Clay Time!

Oh clay you’re so much fun! We dove in to our ceramics unit. The K-5 students began making pinch pots this week, and the middle school students began throwing on the wheel. Hopefully we will have projects done and ready for holiday gifts.