Clay!

This week I introduced clay to the children. None of them had any experience with clay, so it was very interesting to see how they approached it. I started them off with slabs of clay for them to touch, poke and handle. There was a little poking going on, but they seemed reluctant to handle the clay. Then I offered them tools to use on the clay… the usual clay tools: rolling pins and carving utensils- and of course cars, horses, necklaces, and combs!The combs and cars were great for making tracks in the clay.

I also gave each child a small bowl of water and a sponge to moisten their clay if it seemed dry. This made the clay more pliable and very slippery!

After working with the tools, I brought out the bin of collage materials from the previous week for the children to stick into the clay.
Soon, Jordan and Karuna moved to the easel to work on monoprints.

Richie was still very focused on the cars!

After some movement around the studio, the kids came back to their clay to continue working. It’s always important for any artist to be able to take a break and then re-visit their work with a fresh perspective. What great artists!