artist Ben Lim inspired animal sculptures

If you toured the Ben Lim exhibition at Seymour Art Gallery, Ben's love of clay was obvious.

There were an array of animal clay sculptures everywhere and the children had a wonderful time looking at them with the curator during the tour.

She was full of so many interesting facts in regards to the works.

Like how the original crane sculptures were created to represent his family.

Or his love to show majestic whales in motion, either using the surface they were sitting on to represent the water they were breeching from or these bowls that are incorporated to show them swimming.

The curator also pointed out how he created a clay slab that he made into a cylinder to create his sculptures and left clues for the viewer to see his process.

This polar bear was a great example to show the kids exactly how Ben Lim began his works of art.

The curator also highlighted the textures and patterns Ben added to his sculptures and let the kids spend time discussing their own observations they discovered in the works.

Then the kids headed back to the work area and began creating their own animal sculptures inspired by the Ben Lim exhibit. We created the clay sculptures out of air dry clay and the kids all tried their hand at creating their animals using the cylinder slab.

For a couple of the younger children, this was very challenging. As I saw a couple of them getting frustrated, I quickly found some aluminum foil and gave that to them to create an armature all the while praising them for their tenacity in continuing to try the cylinder slab.

It was so interesting to see what each child took away from the curator's tour of Ben Lim's clay sculptures in their artwork.

7 year old

This child was very moved by the whale fins she saw in the exhibit, but was also obviously moved by the story the curator told about how Ben had created the crane sculptures to represent his family because there is a fin here to represent each member of her family.....the smallest fin representing her.

How wonderful is that?

This young artist was obviously paying very close attention when the curator pointed out how Ben was able to use the table surface the sculptures rest on to represent the water as this whale is coming in and out of the water. 

I was so excited to watch her during the process of creating this piece.

7 year old

8 year old

6 year old

The fins were a big hit with the kids and it was interesting to watch how each interpreted Ben's textures and painting style on their own clay works.

8 year old

And we even had a child take the bowl idea and incorporate that with a fin, like I said, the fins were popular.

Then there were the animals.

12 year old

We had a lovely peacock.

9 year old

And this adorable penguin that is very reminiscent of Lim's birds she saw in the exhibit. If you look closely, you can see some of the textures she added in the wings inspired by what she saw during the tour also

12 year old

And then the lone wolf. I love that the artist was confident enough to follow her own path when everyone else was either doing whales or birds.

Once the clay was dry, the kids painting them with acrylic paint and I then set them with a high gloss varnish. They were so lovely when finished.

And without doubt, these clays were a highlight at the art show Seymour Art Gallery put on exhibiting their artworks for family and friends on the last day of camp. 

How could they not be when they are so wonderful?!

animal bust plaques

Last week I ran a morning and afternoon camp inspired by children's family pets.

Violet. 10 year old

On Monday, the morning class started off by creating knee cap sculptures of their pet's face.

Colby. 5 year old

It is quite easy. The kids take the clay and use their knee cap to mold it and create the face. Once they are happy, they finish it up on the table until complete.

Aussie. 5 year old

(boy did he enjoy color mixing throughout the week!)

I used oven baked white clay for this project, so they were able to paint them on the same day.

Froda. 4.5 year old

My initial thought was to call the project complete at that point, but when looking at them finished, they seemed to need a little something more so I bought some wooden "plaques" for the kids to mount them on for display.

Sandy. 9 year old

However the faces looked a little lost on the plaque and seemed to scream for the kids to do a little more artwork on them. It seemed natural to add the animals bodies to the plaque and it created a really nice juxtaposition to the three dimensional faces.

Cassie. 8 year old.

The kids had a great time working on these and I think they turned out lovely.

Duffy. 9 year old

I have a feeling the kids are going to enjoy having these on display at their homes.

Aussie. 7 year old

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.