Tim Burton Inspired Clay Portraits

This is a really fantastic lesson I found on a public Facebook art group 

"ART TEACHING EXCHANGE".

 It was posted (public group) by Amber Pitre who has a private home art studio. 

We started off with a slideshow of Tim Burton's work and films. My students don't know any of his older films (Beetlejuice, etc- *crying emoji*). We discussed the similarities of his characters and the dark and Gothic style nature of it all. 

So, following her instructions, I picked up these 4x6" wood frames from Michaels. They didn't have the exact number I needed, so I had to go searching at other stores to find small wooden frames. 

Student started by removing he cardboard from their frame and painting their frame with black acrylic paint. They wrote their names on the back. They chose a piece of scrapbook paper and traced their carboard backing onto it and glued that down. This serves as the 'wallpaper'. 

I gave each student a sheet of parchment paper to work on to create their model magic portraits.

Many student even drew out a little plan on the parchment even though I didn't ask this of them.

Because these are quite small, this only took one period (about 50 minutes). Student found out pretty quickly that it's tricky to get really small, fine details with model magic (it's so foamy) but they did pretty good! These need to dry overnight at least.

The next class they were painted using acrylics.

While they waited for these to dry, they used white paint pens to draw swirly 

and whimsical patterns on their frames. 

Then they hot glued their portrait onto their frame. I think my kids really enjoyed this project!

 

Abstract Air Dry Clay Sculptures

This is an abstract sculpture lesson using air dry clay. Perfect for teachers like me who don't have a kiln. My students really enjoy this project so I look forward to teaching it!

See my previous posts on this lesson HERE and HERE.

I buy one pack of air dry clay per student. I buy these at Dollarama (Canada).

Most students don't use the whole pack, for whatever reason.

I start off by showing them the work of Jean Arp and Barbara Hepworth. 

We discuss what abstract art is. Then, I do a quick demo and tell them to make any type of abstract sculpture. The only rules is it has to have a hole in it somewhere, and no parts can be thinner than a finger, as they will just break easily. 

Let these dry overnight, longer is better. 

I see my classes once a week, so they are fully dry by the next class.

The next class, students paint them using acrylic paints. They need to mix colours and use at least two.

I show them how to create metallic effects. 

Once dry, they are varnished. 

I paint on water-based varnish but you can also use a spray varnish.

This makes them shiny and helps protect the paint from chipping.

I'm a huge varnish fan and will varnish anything, lol!

Some Grade 7-9 finished sculptures:

 

Van Gogh Inspired Clay Flowers Still Life

Grade 7-9 students looked at the floral still life paintings by Van Gogh and created these beautiful bouquets from model magic. I found the project inspiration HERE on the Painted Paper blog. 

Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch-born Post-impressionist artist. In his lifetime Van Gogh painted a lot of paintings. Among these were still lifes depicting flowers. Van Gogh loved nature, and flowers offered him the opportunity to portray nature at its best. He often used ordinary flowers that grew in the countryside near his home in southern France as subject matter for many of his flower oil paintings. Although he is most famous for his sunflower paintings, he also painted irises, roses, poppies, cornflowers, daisies, almond blossoms, myositis, and chrysanthemums. With his bold colours and textural brushstrokes, he brought life and emotion to his work, putting his unique perspective on it. 

Students created these mixed media floral arrangements using acrylics, tempera, painted paper, watercolour and Model Magic. 

Van Gogh Roses painting

For a base, we used scrap matboard (the centers leftover from cutting mat frames). 

You can also use foam core. There are around 5 x 7" - 8 x 10".

Using acrylic paint, students painted a base and a sky colour for the background. I encouraged them to mix colours and use loose, textural brushstrokes. Let dry. The boards may warp a bit, so stack heavy books on them overnight.

Using scraps of painted paper, students created a vase. 

Glue stick that to the background. 

I cut the model magic into more individual sized pieces and put them into zip lock bags. Fresh stuff is the best. This lesson took about three weeks, and by the third week, the model magic was really starting to dry out despite being stored in zip locks. So try to get your students to make the flowers in one class. Mine are quite slow, plus lots of absences so it was tricky. 

The flowers will stick onto the background if you push them on hard. 

Otherwise, you can hot glue them on once they're dry. 

Let dry overnight. 

Once dry, paint using watercolours or other paint. 

Paint on leaves and stems or cut them out of green paper and glue them on. 

Some finished works- Grade 7-9. I love them!!