Art Class = Week Five Painting Our Clay

Well, we finally made it to the painting stage of this class. The class was broken into two parts.
One part was glazing the clay tiles that were made three weeks ago and the other was a large painting project. This was mainly because there wasn't enough room for all of the children to glaze their pots at the same time.

Leah loves to paint in any form so despite her cranky mood (She seemed very unhappy this morning which is unusual for her.) she dove right into the painting process. I'll let the picture speak for itself. We worked with low fire clay and lead free glazes which is great if you have access to a kiln. I would like to offer an alternative since most of us do not have a kiln.

You can buy great self -hardening clays. They can be very expensive at a craft store as you get a small amount. Check your phone book to see if there is a pottery studio nearby as they usually are a good supplier of large quantities of self-hardening clay. I always used Portland Pottery Supply. I could purchase 25lbs for around $50.00. This sounds like a lot but it keeps well if wrapped up tightly. They can be handled the same way as low fire clay. The objects simply have to air dry. They are a little more fragile but this never seemed much of a problem.

When the clay projects dry, they can be painted with watercolors because the clay still absorbs moisture. The color soaks right into the clay. After the paint drys coat the object with Jazz clear gloss medium or Liquitex gloss medium. This helps to brighten the colors and preserve the clay from moisture. The fish mask is one that I made many years ago in a fifth grade art class using these products.

Found Object Printmaking

You know that old saying: "life has a way of interrupting your plans" or something like that. Well, I had planned to write at least 4 blogs per week but I haven't been able to find the time to sit down and do it. Here is the second of the printmaking ideas. Some people have a problem with using food to make art so I want to offer this alternative.

Materials needed:
A sponge brush or other painting tool
any color of tempera paint
Objects you find in your home
paper

The process is the same as with vegetables. I spent about two minutes looking in my kitchen drawers to come up with the objects that I chose to paint. I found a cork, a wooden spool, a fork, a chopstick, a plastic cookie cutter of a tree, a tea light in a metal container, a potato masher. a pencil eraser and a pastry blender.
The potato masher is perfect for young children because a child can stamp it in the paint and then stamp it on the paper. It creates an interesting grid shape. The cork, the thread spool or pencil eraser can work the same way. You get a clearer picture from the fork tines if you paint the paint on the fork rather than pressing it in the paint. The pastry blender also works best if the paint is paint on to it because sometimes the paint builds up between the spaces when it is just pressed into the paint.

You might wonder what you could do with these stamped images. They are great for teaching about patterns, repetition and sequencing. All of these are skills needed to understand the voice of language or simple mathematics. The are great for creating original wrapping paper. (You can use grocery store paper bags for the paper. Just cut them open and lay them flat) If you use an acrylic paint (Be sure to dress your child in clothing that is not precious to you as the acrylic paint is non-washable.), you can print images on t-shirts or aprons. To set the paint, iron the fabric on a hot setting between two pieces of paper. When printing a t-shirt, place a stack of newspaper inside the shirt to prevent the paint from going to the back. These make wonderful gifts or terrific art shirts!

Art class for two-year-olds

I attended an art class for two-year-olds today with my granddaughter. It was the final catalyst for me to start a blog about the importance of art in any child's education. I loved Leah's openess to the process. She seemed to relish the opportunity to stick her hands in the finger paints and squish the color between her fingers. Applying it to the paper was secondary but eventually created the desired response. "I need green," she would say as she was smearing the purple onto the surface. "See Grammy. See the colors!" She allowed me to share her paper, encouraging me to add more color. I started to show her how I could use my hands to create different types of lines and shapes.
"Look Grammy! I made grass!" And indeed her lines moving upward did look like grass.

I have wanted to start this blog for months, ever since the economy started to collapse. I had concerns that with limited funds the arts programs in our schools, which have already been plundered by the increased load of tests, would begin to disappear from our curricula completely. You see, I grew up in the generation where arts programs in our schools began in junior high. Any formal art class in the elementary program was the result of an individual teacher's love ot the arts or a random coloring exercise which had very limited instruction. Yet I became an art teacher and an artist in spite of it all. I was one of the lucky ones, though, as I had an uncle who was an art teacher in another community. His house was an opportunity for me to explore art materials and the joy of creating.

Let me tell you a little about myself and perhaps that will help you understand my purpose in writing this blog. I was an elementary art teacher in Westbrook, Maine for 23 years. Though certified to teach art in kindergarten to high school levels, I chose to work with the youngest children because this is where the magic begins. Although I was labeled an art educator, I referred to myself as a literacy teacher. After all art is a language. It is the first written language of a child. That first line drawn with a crayon on a piece of paper is the child's way of telling you what he knows or understands about his world. Although it may look like a scribble to you, to the child it has meaning. When my first husband was studying at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., I was the Assistant to the Director at an inner-city daycare which was a pilot program for using the arts to teach math and reading skills to preschoolers. This gave me ample opportunity to observe how the arts help children learn. (More about this later)

Through this blog I hope to share not only my view of the arts but ways in which you can advocate for art education in your schools and why. I will share some of the lessons I used with young children and some of my own artwork. I also hope to hear from you. What do you want to know? What are your experiences with children in the arts? What do you want me to explore further? I hope to share books and articles with you that I have found helpful in my journey into the arts with children. You see this is my first blog. I am absolutely new to this idea. If my daughter Sarah (read choiceofpies.blogspot.com) hadn't encouraged me, I might never have thought of it at all.
Talk to you tomorrow.