Our recent art lessons have been focused where art can be found. First we studied cave art and Olivia tried her hand at it.
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| On this cave wall, we have identified a seagull, a duck, and a person. We are still working on identifying the other figures. :) |
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Our next project was to make a scratched clay pot. We were discussing and looking at pottery fragments that have been dug up in Jericho, Jordon. These types of pottery were formed inside of woven baskets. The directions for the project said to form a clay bowl inside of a paper bowl. When I had looked over my lesson plans the weekend before, I thought we had some paper or plastic bowls in the basement. Well, it seems I was wrong. :) I decided that we would still do the project but that she would just use one of our cereal bowls to form the bowl. I (sort of) thought about how impossible it would be to get it out once it dried but then I wanted to do the project since she had already started it. Olivia had a great time doing it.
A couple days later, when it was completely dry, it did prove to be impossible to get out of the bowl without breaking apart the clay. "Okay, how am I going to approach this with Olivia? Do I just make it disappear? Do I just try to explain that I messed up and see if she wants to do it again?" The answer came to me when I was looking at our art project for this week. We are learning about Minoan Fresco Paintings. They were paintings found on palace walls and floors. The lesson says that most of this art was found in fragments and restorers have put them back together like a puzzle.
The light went on in my head! So we chipped her scratched clay pot out of the cereal bowl. We talked about archeologist that dig up the pottery fragments (along with other things) and we also talked about how the restorers would attempt to put the pieces back together. :) When things don't go the way you plan, just look for a different approach or a way to turn it into a learning opportunity.
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| The remains of her scratched bowl. It has a border and then a flower. |
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| Her Fresco piece using the black outlines, a border pattern, and the somewhat typical colors of blue, black, rust and brown. |
