Monsters!

The past two weeks at New Artists, the third-graders had the chance to work with a medium that was new to most of them: clay! At the beginning of the lesson, I had the students shape their clay into pinch pots, which formed the mouth and head of most of their monsters. Then they used the scratch-and-attach method to rough up the clay and add eyes, horns, arms, wings, teeth, tails, legs, and any other appendages as they saw fit. After letting the clay dry for the week, the students painted the monsters with tempera paint. Here are some of their action shots:

This is a simple and fun project for students of any age that are just beginning to work with clay. It's entirely hands-on which helped keep our students' attention, and it left plenty of creative space for each student's personality and imagination to shine through. Check out their monsters:

- Maggie