TRICIA TOONE | artist & teacher

Raku Firing at Frenchtown School

John Fulwood of Kissimmee River Pottery came to Frenchtown School to raku fire the ceramic work of grades 5-8. Despite the rainy day, I have to admit I personally had fun spending the day outside huddled around the kiln with John, and his assistant Marion. John brought a canopy for the students to stand under, although most decided it was more important to get an up-close look at the action than to be comfy and dry.

For most of the students of Frenchtown School, this was their first experience with ceramics. From raw clay to the raku firing, it was fun to appreciate the wonder of the ceramic process with them. I hope to have John back again next year!

Thank you Frenchtown PTA and Board of Education for making it possible!

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

"If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original."

- Sir Ken Robinson

Sir Ken Robinson asks important questions about the purpose of education and the 

role of creativity. He describes how we may be educating children out of their creative 

capacities because we reinforce a fear of making mistakes.

Hunterdon Art Museum Young Artists Showcase

Frenchtown Elementary School participated in the Young Artists Showcase at Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, NJ. It was an excellent show and we will be sure to participate next year. Congratulations to the young artists from Frenchtown, Holland Township, and Delaware Township whose work was selected to be in the exhibit.

Hunterdon Art Museum is a great local resource for those who live in Hunterdon or surrounding counties. The museum also offers adult and child classes throughout the year. I'm excited to attend the Life Drawing Marathon on Saturday, March 24. 

Here's some photos from the Young Artists Showcase.

There was a good turnout, despite the snowstorm we had that day.

A visitor admires this Frenchtown student's spraypaint peice. The 7th grader had been researching this technique on his own and made many attempts after school and at home. His hard work has quite an impact.

First Grade Clay

In first grade, we were practicing pinching and pulling to make a form in clay. Eventually, I will introduce making a form by attaching clay pieces with scoring and slip. Although they are working with air dry clay now, I want them to develop good habits. 

Towards the end of the session, I handed out toothpicks and demonstrated how it could be used to make texture and carvings. At that point, the sculptures took a turn as students also found some interesting uses for this new tool. 

Here is a Triceratops made by pinching and pulling.  

This little wolf has so much character. He used the toothpicks to make fur texture. 

As soon as toothpicks were in sight, one boy was inspired to make this porcupine. 

A toothpick became a handle for this little bowl.

Halloween in 3rd Grade

Yes, it's a bit after Halloween. But as a huge horror movie fan, I think we can celebrate Halloween year round.

Lebanon Borough 3rd Graders worked with groups to create haunted scenes. They developed their plan in sketches after looking through all the possible materials they had to work with. (cardboard, tissue paper, paint, glue, tape, paper, tubes, clay, string... basically, anything we could find)

Here are the results labeled by group name. (Unfortunately, photographs don't capture the full experience.)

"The Spooktacular Group"

I love the barbed wire made from string, as well as the footprints left from the mini clay characters.

"Haunted Mysterious House"

This haunted building is being circled by a clay train. I believe a ghost is beginning to peak out of the chimney.

 

"The Haunted Sculpture Group"

This group had incredible attention to detail. Notice the toothpick fence they painted one by one.

"The Nameless Horror"

Interesting architecture in this one.

Tim Burton in 8th Grade Art

Tim Burton will be coming up more than once this year in 8th Grade. We just compared a clip from "Nightmare Before Christmas" with "Vincent", a short animated film created by Tim Burton in 1982. Students noticed so many consistent stylistic traits. Here's a few.

• large, vacant eyes
• limited palette, if any color at all
• three dimensional spaces have the appearance of a two dimensional line drawing
• exaggerated forms (extremely round, long, or thin)
• Tiny feet, hands, noses

One student jumped out of his seat to pause the clip of "Vincent". 

"There's Jack!"

True enough, at 5:11 you can see what looks like an early version of Jack and Sally haunting little Vincent. A great example of an artist chewing on an idea over time.

 

Students are now designing an original character inspired by the style of Tim Burton. They will create the character as a sewn material soft-sculpture. I'll post images of the characters as the project progresses. Later in the year, we will revisit Tim Burton as we will attempt stop motion animation.

What Can We Make With Shapes?

In Kindergarten, we have been looking around at all the shapes we can see in the world. Often when we draw or cut shapes  to create what we have in mind, it can be easy to remain stuck in old habits or cliches. (Circle heads, stick arms, corner sun with rays, etc)

In this project, we started with a pile of pre-cut shapes. "Using your imagination, what could that shape be? What could you make with that unusual shape?" 

Students played, trying many options first to see what they could make. They glued down their favorite picture. Afterwards, students created titles for their work.

Some results...

The Furious Superhero Kid by Joey

I love Joey's choice of the "boomerang" like shapes for arms and legs. It gives a feeling of action to his superhero kid.

A Storm by Jon

You can see the victim of this storm seeking shelter under a large brown shape, while "debris" is blowing past.

Rainy Days by Mackenzie 

Small shapes representing rain surround Mackenzie's female figure. I think it is fun to contrast the feel of Mackenzie's weather with the feel of Jon's storm. 

Group Weaving Center

I believe this is my new favorite blog. I love seeing the results of Nan's choice based art room. I would like to gradually work choice based into my art program. However, it requires becoming quite creative with space.

With some 8th grade help, we just began a group weaving center. It has just begun, but I will update the progress.