My Talented Lovely Student Vicky!

Vicky wants to be a make-up artist for horror films. She came to me with no clay experience but she had an amazing work ethic and had incredible focus!

She ended up winning 2 competitions which made her a 1st Place Winner for Sculpture in the California Art Education Association Competition for Southern California with this rabbit head. In her Artist Statement, she said that her rabbit head was covered with make-up because they very often use rabbits for make-up testing and she is against this type of animal cruelty.


Then, her work below was accepted into the American Museum of Ceramic Art in their High School Arts Exhibition. Her work was placed at the front entrance of the exhibition. What an honor!

Here are 2 of her other sculptures below:


She is beginning school at MUDD, a professional make-up artist school now that she's graduated.

Memory Boxes or Jewelry Boxes

This is another large project that is due at the end of the semester so I often miss being able to photograph the best ones. However, I'll post what I've got for now.
This project isn't on my You Tube Channel yet but it will be in a month or so I'm thinking possibly.

Making Luminaries (Or Candle Holders As Some People Call Them)!

This is a fun project. I use it as a quick, week long project at the very end of the semester so I don't ask for much complexity. However, some students took theirs home to work on and they turned out great but in the rush of the end of the semester, I wasn't able to photograph the best ones! Still, it's a nice, quick project when you have them use the basic hand built cup shown on my You Tube Channel "Sherri Patten Ceramics!"

Making Hand Built Cups!

Hello!
I have a You Tube video showing how to make the basic cup but there wasn't enough time to share lots more fun examples from last years' students (and a couple from the year before that I really liked). This year they haven't done the project yet. So, here some of them are, plus the examples on the video so you can take a closer look!
Happy hand building!






My wonderful students hard at work! I worked with many AWESOME people! I'd like to think that we bring out the best in each other.😊



These next three photos are Keily Maldonado's Cup. It's cooler to watch the video because this cup has a face on each of 4 sides and they're all different but these photos are still so you can take it all in!

Unusual Creatures Project!

I haven't had a chance to put a video of this on You Tube but what it is, is having my students practice making the body parts from my videos that enables them to do this work. I have hour and a half classes with 40 students in each class. I grade all before the period is over - I do that because I had 2 minor issues with students taking other students' work for a grade:
1st day: pinchers, octopus tentacles, and fins
2nd day: funny feet, talons, and human feet
3rd day: bat wing, bird/angel wing
4th day: lion head, elephant head (realistic)
5th day: horse head
6th day: draw animal from the front and again from the side (full body both times)

7th Day: Show examples of different kinds of lines. Students trace the back side of their page with the drawings. On the backside of the paper, they put at least 6 kinds of lines on their animal.

8th day: They add 2 or more 3D attributes that are unlike the original animal and decorate them with some of the same kind/s of lines they used on the creature to create harmony through the repetition of line which develops a sense of unity in the piece.
9th Day: Students create the head of their create by looking at their drawing
10th Day: I show on the projector how to make a typical body of an animal (See my video) and they make the body of their animal that day.

11th Day: I show on the projector how to make typical legs of animals as a reminder (they did a demo over a month ago making a dog (See my dog making video) so they have had experience making legs and feet

12th Day: I do a hollowing out demo. They add a tail and their unusual attributes. If they have wings as one of their unusual attributes, I suggest that they begin hollowing out their creature today and add on wings after hollowing simply because it is difficult for beginning students to hollow out a creature while holding it at the same time the entire time.

13th Day: I do a review of hollowing out on projector. Students hollow out their creatures.
14th - 15th Day: Students add their sgraffito lines and finish any extra incomplete work on the project

When I did this second semester, I did the human head demo as part of it since they were ready. However, since I did the project early this year, I felt it was too much to ask.

What I found out, is that I had to make it part of the reqirement for their grade that they do at least attribute that they learned from the videos.

Here are some of the creatures from last year:








I love this one below - how it has those 2 spheres that eat placed above the body. Here my student is completeing the hollowing out. He had so much trouble with breakage and I was so completely impressed by his diligence that made it turn out exactly as he had imagined in the next photo. His finished project is along with some other unusual creatures.