Ceramic Halloween Pumpkins

This project comes from Ellen at Clayworks Studio. It's basically making two pinch pots and blending them together. My kids grade 3-5 loved making these and the success rate was very high.

1. Give each student a piece of clay about the size of a small apple. Instruct them to remove a small piece for the stem and set aside. The rest of the clay is to be split into 2 sections.
2. After warming and softening the clay with their hands, each of the 2 sections needs to be turned into a ball and then into a smooth pinch pot. Two bowls should roughly match each other in size.
3. Any time clay pieces are to be blended together, they need to be scored (scratched) and "puttied" together with slip (clay mud). Roughen up the edges of each bowl with a fork, wet with slip, and gently push the two bowls together. Use clay tool to blend together and hide seam.
4. A small stem is to be formed from the last piece of clay. It also gets scored and slipped on what is determined to be the top of the ball. Encourage extra blending on stem base as they are prone to fall off.
5. The students hold the pumpkin in their hands and use a round tube, such as a jumbo-size pencil to push in ridges. If they rock the pencil from the stem to the bottom, rotate, and press again, they will form what look like the ridges of the pumpkin.
6. The next day, I had students draw lightly on the clay what they wanted their faces to look like. I kept it simple with only allowing circles, triangles or squares (no teeth!). It takes a sharp knife to cut out the faces, so I did it for them with an xacto knife.
7. When the clay is no longer cool to the touch, do a bisque firing with all the pumpkins. Have the students paint the pumpkins with glaze, and fire again.

Art Journaling 136, Tissue Paper Fall Leaves

Fall leaves are made of lots of fun curvy shapes, so I had my art journal students trace them today to make a tissue paper collage of maple, white oak, elm and maple leaves.

1. Download my leaf line art file HERE, and print a page for each student. Pass out lots of rectangles of tissue paper that are large enough to cover the largest leaf, and have the students trace them with a thin black marker.

2. The leaves are cut out in rounded manner, and glued to the journal page with a glue stick. Light rubbing of glue on journal paper, followed by placement of tissue paper is best.

3. When the page is filled with leaves, the outline of each leaf is traced with a metallic marker. Leaf names may be added afterwards.

4. If any other space is left, more leaves may be drawn and traced with a marker and colored with colored pencil.

Munch’s “The Scream” Self Portrait

There’s no denying the popularity of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”. It’s one of the most famous paintings from the Expressionist movement, and is fun for students to imitate.

1. A discussion of the painting is a good place to start, followed with digital photos of each student making their own “scream” face. Make color prints of each photo.
2. I gave the students some colored art paper, had them cut out their colored head and arms, and glue down to the bottom right corner.
3. The original painting has lots and lots of different colors, but there are some basic shapes that I indicated to the students. The sky is made of mostly warm colors, the water dark blues, and the ship lots of browns. I asked the students to outline these shapes on their paper, and then go to town filling them up with layers of colors indicated. This was a very popular project as both the students and homeroom teacher loved the results.

Plastic Bag Mache Pumpkin

This pumpkin is made from about 40 plastic grocery bags, some Saran wrap, 3 rubber bands, newspaper, paper towel and mache, topped off with a beautiful new orange glitter paint I found at Jo-Ann Fabrics. I'm so excited to have found this beautiful way to recycle plastic grocery bags. For my complete tutorial, click HERE.

How to Draw an Owl

My students really enjoyed learning how to draw this owl last week.

1. Follow the steps shown above to make this pencil drawing of an owl.

2. All the pencil lines are traced with a black marker.

3. The owl is colored in with crayon or colored pencil.

Thank you Cassius for letting me share your adorable owl.

Coffee Mug Fundraiser for HOPE Art

I’m happy to announce that some of the amazing art that was created on Project HOPE Art’s last trip to Haiti is now being offered on CafePress products. Lots of combinations are possible (bags, t-shirts, etc.) but this simple coffe mug is my favorite so far. This portrait was created by an 8-year child, which I think is just stunning. You can purchase this mug for $16.99 (plus tax and shipping) and $5 will support HOPE Art’s next project in January of 2012. Please visit our Cafepress shop HERE, and consider doing some early holiday shopping with this amazing original art.