Art

The teddy bears are taking over the art room! At last count there are more than 150 teddy bears drying in their rack, ready to be fired in the kiln next week. For many students it was the first time they handled clay, there were exclamations of ‘Oooh, it’s cold!’, ‘It’s much slimier than I expected’ and of course ‘This is so much fun!’. The grade 3 and 4 students were set a huge challenge this term to make a teddy bear out of terracotta clay and they have risen admirably to the task. These teddy bears are made out of two pinch pots joined together using the joining technique of the 4’s. (Ask your child at home if they know what the 4 ‘S are). Arm and legs were made out of rolling coils and joined to the body, the facial features are little rolled balls that have been joined to the head. Short marks were scored onto the teddy to resemble fur, after firing all they need is to paint the eyes and nose. They will look even cuter then! Here are 3H’s teddy bears getting some drying time and a video of Amelia from 4F explaining how to join arms to her teddy:

Grade 5 and 6 students have also started using white paper clay to make pinch pot aliens. Although new to modelling clay, I have been very impressed with their creativity and how quickly they have learnt the skills of joining features like eyes, tentacles, horns and teeth to their pots. I overheard one student say that he doesn’t think he is good at drawing but he is really good at clay. The wonderful thing about the Visual Arts is that there are so many different types of art, you don’t have to be good at drawing to be a fantastic artist! In the coming weeks we will see how their clay aliens have developed, here are some photos of students from 6P hard at work. 

Cendrine Rodriguez

Art Teacher