Art Club #3

Today we worked in clay, as planned in the previous post. We brought in clay so as not to waste the materials of the already under-stocked art room, and distributed half a bar of the average commercial clay. We then showed them some pictures of traditional Russian clay sculptures to give them inspiration and let them do their own thing. I've noticed the number of members keep growing and growing! It grew from four from session one to nine in session 3.

However, our usual laissez-faire leadership style did not work so well this time. People did not know what to do with the clay, which is a difficult material to work with, and ended up wasting a lot of time in unproductive kneading, unsure of what to do. I think that the issue was the complete novelty of the material. Naturally everybody had worked with clay as children, but creating a sculpture in a structured way was very different. Katarina and Irina themselves chose to abstain from sculpting, helping others instead, while I sculpted, aiming to show techniques without pushing them into their faces. I also really like to sculpt too, so that was probably the main reason.

Despite the difficulties everybody emerged out of the battle with clay victorious, having all crafted something unique if not technically exceptional. I think that it would be important that next time we work in a new material, such as the wood burning we plan on doing next time, appropriate instruction is given before beginning. This will not only insure the safety of those involved, but will also make sure that time is used productively and efficiently.

Here are the finished works:

a simple vase

An interesting human sculpture, once again
by one of my classmates

A kitty cat, sculpted out of white clay, then
rubbed with brown

I sculpted a  hand reaching out of the desk 

The Victorian lady I sculpted with leftover clay

Some of my classmates went for classical
themes in sculpture 

a puppy and his bowl

An abstract sculpture