A Merry and Bright Year

This year has been such a whirl wind, kinda like looking up and spinning under the local tree...

One of favorite things to do as an art teacher is create personal lessons for my kiddos. 

Luckily we live in a city that's full of inspiration, like the Zilker Tree.

This is always a fun, pattern oriented project to conclude the first half of the school year. I love how each student interprets the same colors and lines, some appear to be swaying, dancing, it's really cute.

Well with 2015 at its end I bid you all farewell, and look forward to seeing what the new year inspires. From my family to yours...

Hugs and love, from The Robbins.

On a Mission

So my 3rd graders have spent the past month, or two haha, working on a super exciting project.  It was inspired by this ceramic mission project that I did when I was in 6th grade,

but I decided to combine it with the idea of a luminary for the holidays.

The students worked from slabs of clay, to create the walls and floors of the missions.  This took about 2 classes, with the front and back walls on day one, and the floor and sides on day two.

My 3rd graders are advanced this year, so they had no problem diving in and assembling on their own, I double checked the seams and reseals any cracks as they turned them in, but you may want to give an additional third day to focus on pure assembly if you feel the clay will hold up for that long, cause it was a bit crazy!

After Thanksgiving it was time to give them their first bake in the kiln.

They held up well! 

Then the students used Mayco Element glazes to paint for a natural coloring.

I was so excited to see the final results, I mis-set the timer on my kiln and they only half -baked!

But after round two, the glazes matured,

and the end results are so beautiful!!!!!

Southwestern Succulents

November was a crazy month, and the art room has been so jam packed with projects I haven't had much time for posting. But now that they are concluding and making their way up on the walls, here's what the little birds have been working on...

So this Fall / Winter I decided to go with a Southwestern theme.

A few years ago on our anniversary, the hubby and I took a trip to Terlingua, and every year around this time I am reminded of the beautiful colors of the desert, so inspired this unit.

1st grade worked on a Succulent Garden.

They started with a line drawing on black paper.

Covered their drawings in a glue resist.

Colored their pictures with a variety of chalk.

And got a huge kick out of seeing their final pics get sprayed fix.

The end results were so prickly pretty!