Ceramic Wall Pockets

    In fourth grade at Brimfield, we made these awesome wall pockets, or wall vases during our last 6 weeks.  We talked about Chinese wall pockets being hung by bedsides with flowers to improve the "scent" of the bedroom.  This very old art form is still popular and still made and sold by potters today! 

    To make ours, we created pockets by attaching the edges of two slabs of clay with some newspaper wadded up inside to create an open cavity.  We talked about line and texture and the kids tried relied on these elements when sculpting their work.  We glazed them with color burst glazes and used Twisteez wire for hangers.  Some students made tissue paper flowers for their vases too. 

    This lesson was a big crowd pleaser....the kids LOVED it and were so excited to take them home!



Mixed Media Portraits



     In third grade at Brimfield, we are trying soooo hard to finish these cool mixed media portraits before school is over.  It's definitely one of those projects where I wish we had just a little more time to work on them (don't get me wrong....I am THRILLED that summer is almost here!).  I haven't done this project before (I found inspiration from The Artroom), and I might actually bump it up to 4th or 5th grade in the future.  I think the older kids would work a little quicker and have more time to do even more with media during our 6 week art class sessions.  I love the concept of this lesson, though, and the third graders really enjoyed their independence with their media choices.

    We started by learning about three mixed media artists, Michelle Caplan, Robert Rauschenberg, and Karen Michel.  On this introductory day, I took a photo of each student.  Before our next class, I used the "create a poster" option on Picasa and enlarged each student's photo onto 4 sections and printed them in black and white.  The kids started out by adding dry media right on top of one of their photo pieces, then we did wet media, then collage, and then all media was open for the kids to use.  I need to tweak this a little, but I think there is a lot of potential here!

Standing Room Only

     Last Thursday, we had our first ever "Standing Room Only" event for our Suffield families.  It was an open house type of event where families were invited into their children's classrooms to see some of the amazing work they've done this school year.  We also had a fundraiser for technology where we auctioned off wooden chairs that each classroom had painted.  The 4th and 5th graders also made self-designed artworks (mentioned in my art critique post) that we displayed in donated picture frames.  The students were able to buy their framed masterpiece for $5.  This was such a positive event and we were so happy with the results!

I Ain't Gonna Paint No More Silhouettes

My wonderful friend Mrs. Peterson came up with this lesson when she used to teach at Brimfield.  Be sure to check out her blog at her new home with middle school art at Perry Local Schools.

Before starting these life-sized artworks, we read I Ain't Gonna Paint No More by Karen Beaumont and illustrated by David Catrow.  In the book, a little boy, who is told by his mother to stop painting the insides of the house, covers himself in paint; from head to toe.  The kids love the story and then have an absolute blast tracing each other on kraft roll paper.  We used crayola Slick Stix to draw patterns all over the sillhouettes and then used Biggie Cakes to paint the patterns.  We had to get creative with our classroom space, but most of the kids really enjoyed working on the floor!