Hello Friends of Art with Korb! Mr. KORB welcomes you!
Welcome back to the Middle School Art Studio. We are all working towards clay – ONE WEEK AWAY!
6th Grade Artists are beginning with the ideas of slab building and boxes. The use of the slab roller or rolling pins and slats are just a part of the process. This artwork might be just as challenging as the 8th graders work on the wheel! Keepsake boxes are small containers to hold something of importance to the person and we are creating these for our sixth grade persons OR someone we love and care for. What would you want to create a keepsake box to hold? We are working with SLABS, COILS, FLANGES, SLIPPING and SCORING, as well as really focusing on the idea of CRAFTSMANSHIP! We aren’t even TALKING about glazing yet. What do you want to make a box for?
7th Grade Artists are wrapping up Adobe Photoshop and non destructive photo editing and masking layers. We have gathered CREATIVE COMMONS images or images that were free to use (than you Pixabay) and brought them into Photoshop. File management has been a huge part of the process and the 7th graders are learning as much about that as they are about making art. Photoshop is a great place to build images and manipulate photographs. Layering and masks are in the process as are filters and transparency. We even get to lay in a background that can relate to us. Photoshop was and is a good place to explore making art that is still made digitally with the artists hands in play (no thank you AI).
8th Grade Sculptors continue working on the wheel and on the Bas-Relief sculptures. The kids are coming in at lunch ALL ON THEIR OWN to practice practice practice the process of the wheel. It is challenging and they are doing great. The use of the self assessment rubric has given them a stronger sense of a goal and how to set that goal for success. OK kids – 9,995 more pots to thrown and then it will get easier. Remember, “The first 10,000 pots are difficult and then it gets a little easier.” – Warren Mackenzie. In addition to the wheel, they are working on the use of the slab to make architectural bas-relief sculptures. The ideas here is to create a low relief sculpture using slabs, coils, additive and subtractive techniques on the slab. Then we will be working on the glazing techniques. Next up – TEST TILES!
As always, it is important to be in the studio ourselves. What are YOU doing in your studio? Keep at it artists. Decisions (and art) are made by those who show up. What was Sister Mary Corita Kent’s rule about making? #7 – The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch onto things.
Here are all of our Studio EXPECTATION
6th Grade: Ceramics – Keepsake Boxes!
Here are the 6th-grade semester Lesson Plans to show you what our day will look like.
We are into the world of Keepsake boxes and clay. What you put into the box is up to you! How you build it requires a lot of thought and consideration as well as a lot of practice and process. Let’s take a look at the process together. This week we are planning and creating templates to get the ball (or slab) rolling. What are the tools we need to use? Slab Roller? Rolling Pin and Slats? Slip and needle tools? Yes – and we need to keep the space CLEAN!
Vocabulary? There is a lot in the process. Clay and ceramics, scoring and slipping, green ware and bone dry. Can you identify any of these terms?
How do you make strong ceramics works?
Here is the assignment for the Keepsake Box.
7th Grade: Visual Biography and Photoshop
Here are the 7th-grade semester Lesson Plans to show you what our day will look like.
Let’s keep this part of the post the same until next week… then we’re onto clay (we hope).
This is the end of the road for this work. Two more days and then we assess and get our hands into the clay. From 21st century technology to that from 32,000 years ago.
Using Photoshop and the internet to gather images (or maybe you can gather some of your own) we are going to spend time working with layers and masking. This is a high end artowkr with some high end computer skills that you are going to learn (and master?)! Beginning with yourself we are going to trace and import and erase and layer and resize and the list goes on and on and on… excited? I hope so!
Not one of our artist’s works but this is an idea that can take you places! What do you think about this artist and what they are interested in? Let’s get editing and layering!
Visual Biography Assignment is HERE.
8th Grade Sculpture: Wheel Throwing and Slab Building
Here are the 8th Grade Sculpture semester Lesson Plans for you to see what our day will look like.
What is new in the pottery world today? Tools maybe. What is new in MY studio today? A paper towel dispenser on the wheel. I’ll show images later.
As an artist for my entire adult life, this is what I have landed on for the past 5 years. This is how I start my day and end my day. My life and business partner do this work together and keep our little potter up and running in Korb Pottery. What the artists in the studio will be doing is the same… but maybe not as much or as large.
Starting with one pound of clay and working to pull up a cylinder is the goal. How hard can that be right? Yeah – right! The biggest challenge is going to be the centering, then the opening, then the pulling, and don’t forget to keep the arms locked and the hands in place, and don’t forget to breath. Wedging? No way am I going to try and teach that – well maybe a little. One pound of clay kids…
AND at the exact same time we are working on SLAB constructions of a work of architecture. Their homes or another work of architecture that is important to them. Maybe I’d choose a work of Brutalist Architecture from our nation’s capital – I LOVE that work. Basic techniques will be revisited AND the work will be on their own. Solve some problems, work it out, don’t let it dry out. Ugh. All that one has to remember.
- BELOW are the ceramics assignments
- Wheel Throwing
- NEW – Cylinder Formative Rubric – Thanks Joshua Simmons
- Slab Building
