Wire Dog/Cat Sculpture Tutorial

Today I had one of those rare class periods with my 3rd grade where they were ahead of the other class, done with their project, and I wasn't sure what to do with them.  Then, I had this bright idea!  Currently, the counselor and I are running a "Random Acts of Kindness" program through December.  We are having a penny war among the Elementary grades to see who can raise the most money (via weight) for the local humane society.  These kids have been so generous, it almost breaks my heart!  I teach in a very low income school district, and every day I see the students who are bringing in bags of change for their bucket and I know they don't have much to begin with!  I'm so proud of those students because they are truly understanding the meaning of kindness...doing something for someone without expecting something in return!  We've been doing the penny war for two weeks now and we have one more week to go!  So far, the 2nd grade was in the lead, but 1st grade caught up and passed them yesterday!

So today, I invited Mrs. Deleel over to make those wire sculptures I learned to make at the NYSATA conference!  The kids LOVED them!  Now, normally I would love to do this project by introducing Alexander Calder, talk about different breeds of dogs and cats, etc. etc., but I figured this would be a nice filler and we could send these sculptures to the humane society to decorate their building with!  So, here goes...

Step 1: Squeeze the hook on the hanger so that it creates a little loop.  This will become the nose.

Step 2: Bend the entire top part of the hanger around so that it is on the inside of the hanger.  Don't just try to bend the loop you made or the twisted part.  You have to actually bend the entire top part inward.  This is probably the most tricky part.

Step 3: Bend the corners of the hanger so that they aren't corners anymore.  This makes it easier to bend the ears into different positions.  If you just bend the ears down/up from the way the hanger is bent, you'll have a really big space between the ears and a very short space between the mouth and ears.

 

Step 4: Shape your head as wanted! I call this one the bull dog! ;)

Step 5: Wind pipe cleaners around the wire, starting with the nose.  You can be really creative at this point...add a long tongue from the bottom (pictures next week after the kids complete this!)...make whiskers...use a pipe cleaners and buttons to make eyes...

Here's Mrs. Deleel's dog!  Despite claiming she lacks in the creativity department, she got pretty creative I think!  A yellow lab with a bow!

At the conference, some teachers were wrapping the entire ear from one side to the other with pipe cleaners to make the pink insides...

I'm definitely going to do this again, but more in depth.  Maybe pair it with Blue Dog...the presenters at the conference did this with 1st graders, but I don't think I could imagine doing this with my 1st graders!  About 1/3 of the kids had a hard enough time bending the hangers.  I think you could definitely do this with younger kids if you had the white or colored wire hangers...the ones that are more pliable and easily bent.

NYSATA Conference: Who Let the Dogs Out?

The second hands-on workshop I went to at the NYSATA conference was "Who let the dogs out?"   We made these cute dog sculptures using a wire hanger, pipe cleaners, buttons, and twisteez wire.  A great way to incorperate learning about Alex Calder, the Blue Dog paintings, or any other animals.  It would be very easy to do this for fish as well!  The presenters said that they had done these with their 1st graders and up.  Of course, since the three of us are dog people, we had to make our dogs!

NYSATA Conference: Clay Slab Sushi Dish

The second workshop I attended on Friday was one where we got to make a project to take home...slab sushi dishes!  The presenter showed us how to create the dishes and also had information on Sumi-e.  Last year I did Sumi-e with my 3rd graders and they LOVED it!  This year in my new 6th grade curriculum, I was planning on doing a Sumi-e project.  It's taking longer to get through my units than anticipated, so instead of doing a Sumi-e teacup set, I think I am going to do the Sumi-e plates.  My students should be able to finish them in one class period, take 2 classes to learn and practice Sumi-e techniques while firing, and then take a day to underglaze the Sumi-e designs on and clear glaze for the glaze firing!  Here are the pictures of mine!

 1.  Roll out the clay slab.  We used a pre-cut square, about 6"x 6", to cut out the dish.  Then, we lightly pressed a smaller square into the center of the dish to mark off the flat surface for the Sumi-e.

2. Add flutes/patterns/curls/etc. to the edges of the plate.  We rolled newspaper to help prop up the edges of the plate.

This is one of the examples the presenter had for us to look at.  I love the bamboo Sumi-e, so that's what I plan to put on mine!

One of my art teacher friends, Ashley, and my sushi dishes!

Two more things I want to share in this post: My friend Ashley started her first art teaching job this year as a half-time K-2 art teacher.  She has a blog as well that she started in college and is continuing into her teaching career!  Please check it out at Miss Eipp's Blog!  

The other thing that came out of this particular workshop, and another I attended about clay ideas, is that I decided, yet again, to change the project I am doing with my 5th graders to review complementary colors!  This conference was very inspiring to me in that the presenters really encouraged getting back to making art projects to create art...not necessarily to just push the principles and elements and that's it (I will probably get into this in a future post...it will be a good discussion!).  So, I am going to have the kids create their own complementary colored checkerboards out of clay!  Monday I am going to have them design their board and two sets of checker pieces.  Then, we will create the board out of a slab of clay.  Then I will give them 2-3 class periods to sculpt 24 total checker pieces!  Can't wait!