Weeks 2 and 3 in Potters' Paradise...

Last week, our students participating in the Potters' Paradise worked on making cups and mugs out of slabs. This ended up being an incredibly well received project for the students and enticed their creativity even more than the first week had.

As the students worked on their mugs last week, this week was spent working on catching up on all of our glazing and creating coiled plates, bowls and even cups. In the above image, you are able to see the latest works that were fired and read to either continue glazing or finish with the final clear coat glaze to add the finishing touches to the pieces.

Before most the students started on their glazing, we gave them three different options to choose from on how they wanted to start out their day with us. They had the choice of continuing glazing, working on some new free draw projects, or starting up on the latest coil process. Most of the students decided to work on their glazing before they would start their newest project, but there were still some students who decided to work on their free draw first instead.

During their free draw exercise, we allowed some students to work with crayons on a hotplate to create different drawings rather than solely relying on makers and pencils like they have in the past few weeks.

Throughout the class, to was clear that the students were very much enjoying the new coil technique they were learning. It seemed that everyone made different shapes with their coils from stars and hearts to circles and squares; along with shapes varying, sizes also varied greatly among each of the students' works. One of my favorite parts of this experience is watching their faces light up as they are diving into the entire creative process. To see such young minds being exposed to art and throughly enjoying their experience with it is truly refreshing! Along with this, one thing that made this week particularly special for me was the fact that one of my students made a special pottery piece just for me. 

As a teacher, one of the greatest feelings is knowing you've made an impact on your students' lives, so for them to give you a work of art that they are so incredibly proud of is one of the greatest feelings in the world.

We have three more weeks of enjoying Potters' Paradise, and then we will be diving into a six week drawing experience that I am so excited to be apart of! Seeing how much these students are growing with these art lessons is so exciting, I can't wait to see how much they grow with the up coming weeks!!

The above images are of the finished glazed pieces that need to be fired so they can be taken home next week and are also the finished coiled pieces that need to be fired before they can be glazed next week as well. As you can see, styles and creativity are nothing short of a wide range in our classroom, and it's incredibly exciting to see our students think outside the box like they do. I personally cannot wait to see what next week has in store for us. 

The Beginning of My Adventure...

On Tuesday, I began my adventure at The ZACC, and I am so excited that I am having this experience, so let me explain how my time at The ZACC is going to be spent!! I am going to be interning here this semester to fill my final studio class credits before I graduate this spring. My time here is going to be spent working with kids ages 4-11 on different art projects throughout the semester. On Tuesday, we began a brand new unit with a new class called Pottery Paradise! Some of the children had already taken classes at The ZACC and are returning students and others were experiencing The ZACC.

At the beginning of the lesson, the kids were a bit apprehensive about it, but the moment they were given some artistic freedom, their attitudes changed completely. The lesson was all about creating clay spoons. The younger children did have some difficulties with it the different steps to create a spoon, but the older children really excelled. By allowing them to create any type of spoon and to decorate it and make it their own, they felt more comfortable with the entire process and much more confident in themselves as well.

Sometimes, art can be a scary thing to students, when they are exposed to new things that they have never done before or even heard of before. But, when we allow them to have some freedom to express and display their creativity the results are endless and wonderful to see.

When I saw the excitement in these kids' eyes, I saw how creativity and artistic starts at such a young age and can only progress; this program at The ZACC allows for that expression to take place.