Thursday, January 23, 2014

First grade snowflakes

First graders learned about Wilson Bentley. He is credited with taking the first photographs of individual snowflakes in the mid 1800's. His photogrPhs led to the belief that no two flakes are alike. First graders also learned about complementary colors on the colorwheel. They are across from each other, just 12 is across from 6 on the clock. They are opposites and make each other appears brighter. We glued down three primary colored squares in a checkerboard pattern and then created a snowflake by folding and cutting paper. The snowflakes are the complementary color of the primary colors. Red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

3rd grade Coil Pots

Third grade artists learned about coil pots and how they have been used for thousands of years as containers for food and drink. The advantage of a coil pot over a pinch pot is that a coil pot is not limited in size. They can made quite large by adding coils on top of coils, while working to blend each coil into the previous coil. Some artists choose to leave to the coil, or rope like designs; others choose to smooth them out. Our coil pots had to change shape, thick to thin, thin to thick and had to feature tow of the different methods of creating coils we learned about-- simple ropes, or zig zags, or spirals or even just dots. After the coil pots were fired, we glazed them using two different colors of glaze, making sure we used three coats of glaze to ensure a clean, shiny, bright finish. The below photos are some examples of student work from all four third grade classes.