Big Mouths

I have spent a lot of time today getting ready for clay projects. I have only done clay with kindergarten and third grade, and we only have five more art classes! Here's what I'm planning for fifth grade; I found the project originally on Artsonia and made a "mental note" to come back to the gallery to more carefully examine the projects. However, I forgot to bookmark it and couldn't find it when I wanted to go back and view them. So, I used my imagination and came up with my own version. Last year, I had the kids look at charatures before creating these, and they turned out great. I'm at a new district now, and we have shorter classes so I'm not sure if I will be making that connection. I do plan on making a Smart Notebook presentation of them, just in case.

I started with a ball of clay about the size of a raquetball-almost as big as my palm. I pushed the handle of a paintbrush into it and made it into a pinchpot.

Two equal sized balls create the eyes.

I scored them, added slip, and smoothed them together (I call those my "Three Ss" for the kids to easily remember them). I used a marker cap to press the eyes into the clay. As I played with the nose, it started to look way too much like Elmo (curse of having a two-year-old?), so I used a clay tool to make nostrils instead. Then it looked like a frog to me, so I went with it by adding a long tongue.

He's after lunch, so I added a little bee/fly for him by rolling an oblong ball and pinching wings.

We will be painting these with watercolors, and adding details such as beads, feathers, wire, etc with hot glue.

Here is a completed example: