Koi Fish Bowls

Every now and then I say that this is my favourite project ever. This is one of those times. As a follow on from their Koi Fish Drawings, I had my grade 2 students create pinch pots containing tiny koi fish sculptures. 

The idea for this project came from the lovely tea cups made by ceramicist Mochi Liu. You can see them on his etsy site here. I was a little unsure how my students would go with sculpting such intricate and tiny fish but they really surprised me. I guess having tiny little hands definitely helps.  

My instructions were to roll a tiny piece of clay into a cylinder, then pinch one end to create a long teardrop shape. I then asked them to make three tiny triangles and attach them to the body to form the side fins and tail. We pressed the lid of a texta (thin marker) into the clay to create the scaly texture and the eyes. Having already studied pictures of koi fish and completed drawings, the students seemed to have a much better idea about transferring these ideas into three dimensions.  

The fish were painted using gloss glazes. I had planned to melt glass marbles in the bottom of each pot to create the look of water, as I have seen this done on other blogs, but after experimenting and having a couple of pots explode (why did this happen? Can anybody tell me?) I got most students to decorate the inside of their pot with oil pastels and blue edicol dye (food colouring) to create the look of water in the pond. I think they are the most adorable thing ever!

More Koi Fish Drawings

 

You may have seen this lesson HERE the first time I tried it 2 years ago. I rarely repost lessons but I am so amazed at my current cohort of grade 2 students that I had to share these. 

After looking at many pictures of koi fish and discussing the way they move and the different markings and colours they can have, students created a pencil drawing from a photo of their choice. 

I asked them to begin with one line to represent the backbone. The curve of the line would also add movement and make their fish look as if it is swimming. They then created a body shape around this line, including the tail and drew in great detail the other features. After drawing I had them go over their drawing with black permanent marker before painting with watercolours. 

Students cut out their drawing using a wavy line to represent a pond. We didn't add the charcoal lines this time (as I did the last time I taught this lesson) as I was too excited to get these on display!

Ceramic Kimonos

In order to integrate students' learning of Japanese language, we have tackled many Japanese themed art projects this year.

This sculpture project was inspired by the work of grade 8 students from Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy here at Artsonia.   These ceramic kimonos were made by grade 4 and 5 students using slab construction techniques and stand approximately 15-20cm tall.

Students designed 3 paper template pieces for their kimono, much like a dress-making pattern which were laid onto thinly rolled slabs of clay and joined and sculpted to form a free-standing sculpture. (Having said that, many kimonos had to be glued to wooden bases after firing as they were a little unstable but I think either way looks fine).

Students used gloss glazes to add colour and pattern to their kimono, using Japanese papers and photographs of traditional kimonos as inspiration.