air dry clay lions

The second week of Spring Break, I ran two camps out of the studio. In the morning, Studying Under the Masters and in the afternoon, Creatures Big and Small.

The Creatures Big and Small camp was on the whole a very young class, which was so much fun to work with on projects! The first project I introduced to the kids was a clay sculpture. As a group they decided to create lions since we were focusing on African animals that day.

9 year old

I allowed them to create these lions as big as they wanted, but had them start by creating the basic shape out of aluminum foil so it would dry by the end of the week. I went over all the basics with them, how to add a piece of clay by scoring and slipping, how to add texture, how they could use their fingers as tools to create indents where needed, and a few other things.

4 year old

They all truly enjoyed working with the clay. The little ones were thrilled that they were covering the "top secret" core of the sculpture (the foil) with clay so that no one but us would know about it. And if there hands got "too dirty" for them to handle, I had a bucket so they could rinse them off and then keep going.

10 year old

They spent a long time creating these works, even the very young children. Who doesn't like clay?

7 year old

Some of the artists decided to create lions while others created a lioness. I had reference out for both..

5 year old

Once they were finished, they wrote their names on the bottom with a toothpick and put them aside to dry. That was the hardest part of the project, waiting for them to dry. Each day they would come into the studio and make a beeline straight to the clay to check their progress. They loved admiring their works of art and each day asked the same question, "Can we paint them today?"

But by Wednesday an additional panicked remark began to be heard, "Mine's cracking!" Yes. The downside to air dry clay, cracking. It seems no matter what I do to slow down the drying process, there are the dreaded cracks. Thankfully after working with this stuff for many years, I have found some ways to hide the cracks.

When they are completely dry, I add a glue adhesive over the cracks made for clay. Once that is dry, I add a gesso made for clay that I got at the art supply store. It is one of the greatest discoveries I have ever made! You just spray it on and it dries almost instantly. I do two coats and one small can seems to last forever, so worth the small investment to have in the studio while I save up money for a kiln. Once these two things are done, there is virtually no evidence of the cracks.

6 year old

Finally the day to paint arrived on the last day of camp. The kids could not of been happier to see their sculptures on the tables when they arrived for camp with paintbrushes lying next to them. Some of the artist took their time, mixed the perfect shade of brown to add to their works while others just got lost in the process of adding color and watching what happened. No matter how they decided to paint, they each enjoyed working on their sculpture.

5 year old

One of the five year olds is in the weekly Kindergarten class I run on Tuesday afternoons during the school year. I asked him what he liked best about the camp and without hesitation he replied, "the clay".

I'm going to guess some of the others would agree.