Fort Meigs African Safari - Ceramic Installation

This was a huge and very satisfying undertaking… I love clay, I love installations, this was the perfect project at the right time.  I did not photograph the making process of these animals, I made this in 2004. Before I was a blogger, before Facebook, before Pinterest.  Had I known that image sharing would be what it is… I would have documented the whole thing! So… the basic details…

4th Grade – Wild cats – any kind they wanted to make, I had lots of pictures for them to see.

3rd Grade – Elephants, Zebras, Hippos, and Giraffes – each class made one animal

2nd Grade – Monkeys, Gorillas, Alligators and Rhinos

Every project is created on a pinch pot body.  Then build with not body parts, but muscles.  If you pay attention to how the muscles attach on an animal, you can build an animal in clay to stand on four feet.  If not… they fall over.

Finishing was acrylics.  I pre-dipped all the animals in semi-gloss latex by base color needed.  Then students add the accent colors.

Display – Twisty paper bag trees with shredded green construction paper dumped on top.  Burlap and blue transparent cellophane.

Fort Meigs Farm - Ceramic Installation

This project was my first ceramic installation… The FT. MEIGS FARM!!! Love it! Cracks me up! It was super fun to make, easy pinch pot projects.  This was made in 2006 & 2007, I did it two years in a row.  Pre Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and BLOGGING! I do not have any photos of the process.  So… just enjoy!

1st Grade – Chickens, Ducks, Pigs & Sheep

2nd  Grade – Cats, Dogs, Horses & Cows

4th Grade - Positive & Negative Plaster Cloth Sculptures

This is a fun sculpture for focusing on positive & negative space. We looked at a few sculptures that illustrated negative space. Henry Moore was one of the artist we looked at closely.

Then we worked on creating negative space with 4 pipe cleaners. 

I cut up a pile of plaster cloth into strips and gave them cups of warm water. They dipped and wrapped the pipe cleaners. Once wrapped, the wrapped pipe cleaners can get heavy, changing the shape. We used toilet paper rolls to hold the shape while they dried. Students had a piece of paper with their name on it, underneath was a piece of styrofoam just for support.

Day 2, we painted them with acrylic paint. We used semigloss latex in colors. It worked perfectly!