December 11, 2014

African Clay Masks: 3rd Grade

I HAVE DONE EVERYTHING I KNOW HOW TO GET RID OF THIS SPACE ABOVE HERE?!?!!?!?  I HAVE NO IDEA WHY IT IS DOING THAT???

This project started at the beginning of the 2nd 9 weeks, but just finished this week!  To kick the unit off, we looked at & discussed African Masks.  We looked at many from different parts of Africa...with many different purposes....and many different designs. We started by drawing our mask out & writing a description of what the meaning of our mask.  The following week students created their mask out of clay.  We went over all the wonderful clay techniques they could use in their masks: texture, addition, subtraction, piercing..etc.  
THEN WE WAITED!  It was a very wet start of the 9 weeks...so the clay took longer to dry than usual.  We moved on to our circle weavings(post coming soon).....so I had plenty of time to allow the clay to dry & fire it.  

This week students have been using oil pastels to "color" their clay.  We use paper towel to really rub the oil pastel into the surface.  

I then dipped the clay into a black paint/water bath.  I used both tempera and acrylic paint to create my "bath"...and it seemed to do the trick.  I had to add water each day(didn't have a closed container) and stir it up...but other than that...it was no problem at all!!  

After giving them time to dry...I'm brushing a quick coat of TEMPERA VARNISH on top.  I love tempera varnish..low odor...not very expensive...great results!!  


3 comments:

  1. I've had that happen with the spacing too, and couldn't fix it. Just blogger being ornery, I guess! The masks are lookin' good.

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  2. I love that aged look you get from the oil pastel resist. Is this air dry clay by any chance? That is all I have to work with (no kiln) and have had problems with lots of things breaking in the past. Trying to decide if this would be a good project for air dry...

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    Replies
    1. Stephanie...this is kiln fired, but you could do it that way. Just don't dip it in a black paint water bath!!! Haha. You could paint the black tempera on...then have the kids towel it off.

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