All You Have Learned Contribute To Such A Beautiful Piece!

We have learned drawing, painting, collage and clay-work. In this class, they apply all the skills they learned in order to create what they want!

Collage and drawing together built a beautiful house surrounded by cats.

She put lots of efforts in tracing the margin of the elephant, using materials with various textures.

It was like a 3D knife!

As she glued these multimaterials on this paper, this artwork became more vivid! Look, it was just like a real cloud!

Wow! What a creative way to make this background in red! 

She said, I want to sew a pocket for my dog! 

More amazing artwork in this session is as follows:

Their creativity will never be limited in one single material. Child development is like infinity as long as we are willing to provide them what they need!

Co-Create!

A big paper allow children to share the same space. Let's see what happen!

Cars and roads appear on the boys' paper.

They designed diverse cars.

They both drew stop signs

This pair created the their own subject

 then interacted with each other.

Started from two children,

This paper is finished by multi-artist!

But sometimes children need more personal spaces...

But all situations above are good for a child to share, join, interact or build their own boundaries. It is also an opportunity to know and practice different kinds of social skill naturally!

Making Your Own "Toy" in Art at the Center!

This is what we glazed one week ago! 

Let's see their glazed artwork after firing!

The change of color with firing makes children surprise!

The boy on the right asked another boy the story in his art

They even started a pretend play, holding other's artwork carefully. Because they knew how much efforts and energy it had taken doing these wonderful art pieces! 

 They made more clay-work, and with higher molding skills and of greater imagination!

This is a great cycle playing with Clay. From modeling, firing, glazing to the shiny artwork. So magical!

Let's Try This!

Playing with clay is a process of building and rebuilding. In Saturday family studio, I saw these great ideas that children discovered!

An almost-3-year-old girl sang a birthday song in front of the cake she made.

We found she remember what she made last week! And she loved to repeat practicing!

using a plastic knife to cut

molding with finger pinch

A roller!

A cover!

 Stamping? Printing?

Look! I made an art piece!

We are so creative, aren't we?

Clay and Beneficial Glazing!

Clay is a therapeutic material in which also promote children development. Sholt and Gavron (2006) points out the three major therapeutic features of clay-work in their literature review and clinical experience as art therapists. 

(a) procedural expressions through the experience of touch, movement, and the three dimensional aspect of clay-work

(b) construction and deconstruction processes through clay-work

(c) the regression process ( In art therapy, children use clay to represent food and engaging in symbolic acts of nourishment, Sholt & Garvon, 2006)

So what are the benefits glazing bring to children in Art at The Center?

Glazing is a complicated step that require patience and intelligence. You have to put colors separately, for they are not like painting color mixing together. Moreover, you have to carefully paint two layers in order to see the bright and shiny color after firing.

Sometimes the colors look like just what they are. 

Sometimes it is hard to imagine what the glaze will be after firing. See the glazed artwork on the left. 

It's actually brown. 

I think the greatest advantage of glazing is to make clay-work a complete production. One thing is that children's ideas are able to take place in clay gradually. In addition, by engaging the process and expecting for the product being done, they definitely can't wait to create more artwork with clay! What a good circle of art making!


References:
Sholt, M., & Gavron, T. (2006). Therapeutic Qualities of Clay-Work in Art Therapy and Psychotherapy: A Review. Art Therapy: Journal Of The American Art Therapy Association, 23(2), 66-72.