Pinch Pot Silly Fish

     In second grade at Suffield, we just finished these hilarious ceramic fish sculptures.  We started by looking at a Prezi I made about the presence of the fish throughout art history.  (You can see it here.)  We talked about different reasons people make art and discussed why artists might choose to make artworks about fish.

    When it was time to get to work, I demonstrated the pinch pot technique and then how to squish the form a bit to make it more mouth-like.  The students where then set free to add eyes and fins and whatever else they wanted to add to their sculptures.  I challenged them to sculpt something inside the fish's mouth (teeth, tongue, another fish, etc.).  It really was fun to see these funny fish come to life.

    The kids painted them with tempera paint and then I gave them a quick coat of Mod Podge after school to give them more of a glazed look.

4th Grade Watercolor Trees

    We started these awesome trees at the end of my first six weeks at Suffield, and just finished them.  You'll notice the green leaves and t-shirts in the photos from our outdoor classroom when the weather was much warmer.

    To start, I showed the kids a Powerpoint  of the presence of the tree throughout art history.  We looked at works by Mondrian, van Gogh, Rembrandt, Hundertwasser, Klimt, and many others.  After learning some tree-drawing strategies, we headed to the outdoor classroom to draw trees from life.  We completed the drawings inside, outlined with Sharpie (I know, my favorite), and then painted with warm and cool colors of watercolor paint.  We used watercolor paper, so many of the paintings really turned out bright and bold.  The students were challenged to layer their paint to really get the best results possible from the special paper.  The assignment was to just draw a realistic tree.  Many of the students did just this, and many elaborated the idea into a bit more.