Cover Image: "Ticket to Mexico" by a Kindergarten, 8th Grade, and 11th Grade Student
The New Buffalo Art Department is excited to share that students in grades K-12 have combined their creative talents through a district-wide art project. Mrs. Ledyard and I have been in collaboration this year to connect the inspiration from New Buffalo Elementary's kindergarten artists with the 7th, 8th, and High School art students. What resulted from this art exchange was the Monster Collaboration!
The kindergarten classes read a monster story together and imagined their own version of a monster. They drew these monsters in a contour lines in marker to reflect the personality and features of their monsters.
After they had finished their drawings, each student created an artist statement to describe their monster to the high school students.
I read these kindergarten stories to my high school students and let them choose which monster they were inspired to transform from paper into clay.
Each high school student wrote a note to their kindergarten pen pal on the back of the artwork in pencil. Some wrote words of encouragement and others asked questions about their monster.
Before working with clay, I had each student photograph the original art and sketch how they would convert the drawing into a three-dimensional sculpture in the round. This step took some thought and planning since some of their drawings were standing on thin legs. The sculpture needed to be stable and freestanding to be able to support itself.
Students adjusted the drawn idea by having their monster sit, lie down, or giving it a base to stand on. They pinched and pressed the clay into solid 3D forms to hold the weight of their sculptures. I challenged them to add as many 3-dimensional details as possible that reflected the original drawing instead of relying on painting them all on at the end.
We photocopied the kindergarten artwork so that students could have a reference of their monster sources without getting their clay fingers on the original art.
My high school students loved building their monsters! They got to rediscover their inner child and play into a little nostalgia by sculpting a monster inspired by the creativity of their kindergarten pen pals. Students shared their thoughts about this step of the process in their self-reflections at the end of the project:
"My favorite art project this trimester was the clay monsters because I like the concept of the elementary, middle schoolers, and the high school all creating art together. It felt like a sentimental project."
"Definitely the monster sculpture was my favorite because it was cool how little kids designed it and then we got to make them while adding my own little twist to it."
"My favorite project would probably have to be the clay monster because we were able to put a lot of our own personality into it while interacting with elementary kids. I love working with clay and it was very cool to see the kids' imagination come to life."
"The monster project...I've never tried so hard on an art project before."
After the main details were intact, students sliced their sculptures in half to hollow out the interior with an opening at the base to speed up the drying time and prevent explosions when firing. All the scraps of clay were saved into a lump for external details when the halves were reattached back together.
As the pieces became leatherhard, students finalized their sculptures smoothing any cracks in the appendages and carved the surface texture details.
In the meantime, my students in 7th and 8th grade Art joined the Monster collaboration by choosing which kindergarten drawing they would create a diorama for the high school monsters. My middle school students had the advantage of seeing the HS sculptures in-progress being made from my other classes so they were able to piece together the original design and the 3D transformation as they imagined what type of environment the monster would live in.
The 7th and 8th grade students also wrote notes to the kindergartners and then drew their ideas for the diorama on a photocopy of the artwork inspired by the original description.
We folded pyramid dioramas from square pieces of tagboard. One edge was cut into the middle so that it could overlap and prop up 3-dimensionally. I had students mark one section with an X to mark the section that would overlap. Since it is easier to draw on a flat piece of paper, they used a paper clip to prop up their background to see how it was progressing and make sure their lines were connecting and then flatten it to continue drawing.
I had the students plan their colors by shading in colored pencil on their original sketches. We outlined the drawings in sharpie marker and reviewed watercolor techniques before they painted the dioramas.
The middle school piece of this collaboration really helped to bring the original monster stories to life. For example, this piano diorama was made for a kindergarten monster who loves birthdays and cupcakes and their favorite colors are rainbows.
Below is a penguin monster who lives in the arctic titled "Home Sweet Home" and a candy monster who likes playing video games with his little brother. "Megalodon" is a monster living inside the mouth of a giant shark and "Friendly's Reading Corner" is the bedroom of a monster named Friendly who loves reading books before going to sleep.
The students glued their dioramas together when finished and created titles for their artwork.
When I was reading the kindergarten monster stories at the beginning of this middle school collaboration, one of my 8th graders recognized the name of his little brother on the artwork and got dibs on creating the background for him! After school, he asked his little brother what kind of diorama he should make for the monster and settled on painting a giant piece of pizza since their family runs a pizza restaurant. This is the final collaboration of their work together.
After the HS sculptures had been bisque fired, they painted the monsters in a layer of gesso and referred back to the original kindergarten drawings. They drew contour lines in pencil onto the sculptures to reflect the lines that their kindergarten pen pals had originally drawn. I challenged them to pay close attention to each mark in the drawing to include in their sculptures. If the kindergartner had used a red marker, the high school students painted in red lines to bring their drawing to life.
Here Be Monsters!
When Mrs. Ledyard and I first began planning this project we considered having the middle and high school students give their monsters to the kindergartners who designed them. However, I knew that some students would want to donate their work and others would get too attached to what they had been making to give it up. We didn't want some kindergartners to get monsters back and others not so we decided that all the artwork would go back to the artist who made it.
In place of giving physical work to the kindergartners, we made cards for all the students with the final pieces of each team photographed together. These collaborations were uploaded to their Artsonia portfolios for parents and students to save a digital copy and their handwritten notes were typed up to give to each student who participated in the Monster Collaboration.
These are some of the collaborated artworks together:
The Monster Collaboration will have its debut at our first annual district art show with artwork from students throughout the year in grades K-12 along with these beautiful monster stories.
We welcome you to attend the New Buffalo Area Schools K-12 District Art Show on Thursday, April 25, 2024 at New Buffalo Elementary School. You may enter the elementary building through the main entrance by the office which will be open for Parent Teacher Conferences from 1-4pm and 6-8pm.
Mrs. Ledyard and I are so excited to reveal this Monster Collaboration in the elementary art room and display our students' artwork all together in the hallways of NBES for this exhibition! Feel free to visit the elementary to view the exhibition at your own pace for this one-night only showcase to admire their beautiful artwork.
This is just a sneak peek of some of the artwork that will be displayed at the district show this week!
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