Salt Dough Inuksuk/Innunguat

I learned some new things about inuksuks this time around!

What I (and most of the world) commonly thought is an Inuksuk is not! 

Inuksuk or Inukshuk : a landmark 

Inuksuit : plural

Innunguaq : imitation of a person

Innunguat : plural

Apparently this Olympic logo is partially to blame for the misconception. 

The project:

This lesson was a great round out to a unit on Native American art, culture, and history. 

My fifth graders made a large batch of salt dough as our clay for this. 

The recipe is:

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 cup water

Then it has to dry for a long time (or you can bake it on low for a long while).

It was also a great lesson in ratios for them as they measured and made them really

invested in the project making their own materials. 

After we made out dough we made pinch pots since some of my kids have

never had art until this year and we don't get to use clay a whole lot. 

The next day we discussed native peoples of the arctic region of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland.

I introduced Inuksuit and Innunguat and then we watched a really good five minute you tube video.

This video is such a great introduction to the lesson depicting

the landscape as well as explaining the purpose of the sculptures/landmarks. 

We used two to three toothpicks as the armatures for the stone people.

The image above shows the plan for how the clay "rocks" are held together. 

When they dry they look and feel like rock. 

We painted them brown and grey to look like rock when they were dry. 

 

clay cookies

Happy Valentine's Day!

Kindergarten clay 'cookies' made out of model magic printed with rubber stamps for texture. 

We painted them with a mix of tempera and acrylic medium for a 'glaze' today. 

These plastic bowls worked perfectly for keeping

 a hold of them, labeling names, and sending them home. 

Mola-inspiration: Clay coil birds and yarn painting

My friends went to Panama this winter and brought me back two molas!

I used them as inspiration for my fourth grade project. We just finished them up and it went really well. I was inspired by the use of lines and wanted to teach the kids how they could apply their understanding of coils in a new way (other than making a coil pot).

After our class getting snowed out three weeks in a row we finally got started!
The students first did practice drawings of the birds and how they would create the shapes out of coils.
We used model magic to make the birds, when they dried I glued them to mat board.

The next week we painted the birds with tempera paint mixed with acrylic gloss.
We re-examined the use of continuous lines and spirals in the molas.

Then we painted lines on to the mat board and then began to glue down yarn designs. I wasn't sure how much yarn we were going to glue down but after one day of work on them I decided to encourage  the students to really fill in the spaces with yarn as much as possible.

The textural result of this project is fantastic. The clay becomes three-dimensional in a new way and the feel of the yarn is such a strong contrast to it. The class took a few minutes to experience how you can actually feel the pictures and the use of lines when you touch the pieces with your eyes closed.

*Due to my traveling to the classroom and wanting to glue the bird down to the board we used model magic.
I think this would be a cool lesson to do with regular clay though- creating an animal or design out of coils.  Especially if you were to attach the coil creation to a slab tile or some kind of base.

Funny Pinch Pot Characters

This project is courtesy of my art teacher friend Sarah.  

It's a simple but great step up from the typical pinch pot.  

Texture/Slab/Clay.... Candy Dish!

We rolled out clay slabs and sliced them into about 8 x 8" inch squares, 1/4-1/2" thick or so. 

Using various tools the students experimented with making different textures and patterns.  Some of the tools included forks, popsicle sticks, empty glue sticks, toothbrushes....

 Then each student cut four slices diagonally from the corners. 

 We discussed slip or scoring- or "scratching and attaching"- or as I like to call it "clay velcro".  I call it this because I explain how two edges need to have rough texture in order to adhere to each other strongly.  They always get it after that.  

We attached the corner slices together and turned the 2-D forms into 3-D forms.  

These were fired and glazed.  They make great candy dishes!

Clay Mandalas

For this lesson I introduced the concept of what a SLAB is in clay, rotation symmetry, Mandala's from various cultures, and Talavera tile designs from Mexico.

I had the students roll out their clay slab to be about 1/4" thick,  having them lay their hand down next to it to make it about the same thickness as their finger as a way to measure.  Then they traced around a circle stencil or paper plate to cut out their circle.
They created their symmetrical designs first on paper and then on the clay by incising into the clay and also building onto the clay to create a textural piece.
We used metallic acrylic and tempera paints on top of the air-dry clay.

FYI- I did this project during a summer class that did not have as many students as my public school classes but it would be very do-able in school. My students were grades 2-4. They came out beautiful!