Sami Auster
Art Educator/Artist/ Student
Class 4: Imaginary Creatures
The student's creature pictured above included a ring that they explained when they wore it their creature would appear. This student was successful in creating a 3d sculpture that represented his imaginary creature.
The student who made the creature pictured above used a wire to create the texture of the teeth. This is a great example of creatively manipulating clay.
On this student's lesson menu they circled big eyes, giant, wings, and big ears. This student successfully created this creature with all of those traits. When explaining their creature they explained to me,"She uses her big ears as wings to fly."
The student above's artwork is great example of using the coil building technique to create the body of their creature.
Project Description:
In this lesson, students learned about how artists and designers use their imaginations to create something that has not existed before. Students observed examples of how artists combined unfamiliar things and ideas to create an imaginary creature. This lesson focused on imagination and play, through which students created a clay sculpture representing their own imaginary creature.
Essential Understanding:
Artists and designers draw inspiration from their imagination and outside sources to create original works of art.
Objectives/Outcomes:
Students will be able to...
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Imagine their own imaginary friend
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Experiment with clay and others materials
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Reflect on their design
Skills:
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Envision ideas in a lesson menu
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Create a 3D sculpture that represents an imaginary creation
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Manipulate and transform clay
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What worked well for this art experience? Why?
A lot of things worked really well for this art experience, one thing was that every single student was engaged during this activity. There wasn't a single student who didn't participate, this made me so excited because this was the first activity where every student got involved in it. Another thing that worked really well was the use of the lesson menus, the menu helped students who have trouble thinking of ideas brainstorm much faster and avoid the stuck feeling that some of them run into when brainstorming. Another thing that worked really well was the model magic was very easy to work and mold, making it easy for even our student who really has difficulties with motor skills to make marks with her hands in the clay.
What didn’t work well for this art experience? Why?
When we showed the video it seemed like most of our students were distracted and didn't pay attention or make the connection between the video and the assignment. Another thing that didn't work very well was that most of the students seemed to finish making their creatures very quickly which made us jump to painting earlier than planned. Because we had to paint the model magic while it was wet the paint wasn't as easy to apply. Lastly, something that didn't work very well was the option to add in your own ideas on the lesson menu, at least for this set of students that wasn't an option any of them utilized.
What would you do differently? Why?
If I was to reteach this lesson I would take out the video portion all together because I don't think it added to student learning. I also would replace those fill in the blank spaces on the lesson menu with more predetermined options to help add more variety to the lesson since the predetermined options seemed less intimidating to students. I also would maybe add an additional sculpture to the creature sculpture because after kids were finished they seemed to still be very interested in the model magic so I could of taken advantage of that and had them create even more sculptures.