Mini Monets

For our first projects in clay, I like to introduce the basics. Manipulation of clay starts with the basic pinch and pull. You can stretch out legs or pinch out wings. From there, clay can be twisted and turned to make any simple creature. Last year, we made Penguins and Igloos and I wanted to keep the project so that we could learn about a different animal and their habitat. So we created bees and bee hives. The bees started out as a simple pinch pot, then we flipped the pot over and pinched out wings, antennae, legs, and stingers. The bee hive was made by flipping a coil pot upside down. Creating a coil pot teaches artists how to roll a coil, a snake like shape, that is bent into a ring and stacked upon other coils. To seal the stack, each coil must be scored, or roughened with a tool, and a thin layer of water, called slip, must be applied to the rough area. After placing a new coil, they must be blended together using fingers or tools to create a stronger bond. To finish each piece, the artists were able to choose four colors and their imaginations went wild when they didn’t have to paint black and white bees.