Spheremen
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Snowmen are one of the fiirst lessons I have my first grade students create in clay. In kindergarten, their clay work is all flat sculptures. Making snowmen gives the kids an opportunity to create at least 10 clay spheres of different sizes and then more importantly, work on stacking them up make a three-dimensional sculpture. This lesson is the transition lesson from flat to 3-dimensional. When we create these in the art room, we refer to these as spheremen.
Sometimes for older students, I challenge them to create a snowman with a personality. I remind them of the snowman they created back in first grade, and ask them to add visual objects to a new snowman that gives it a personality. On this page you can see a cookie monster snowman, a snowman in the desert, and a magician and basketball playing snowman.
The snowmen near the top of this page are glazed in our majolica glaze with lowfire glazes over the top. The snowmen with personalities are painted with tempera paints and then an acrylic varnish made by Sax art supply it brushed over the top. The varnish is called "Platinum Metallic" and the kids love the sheen it gives to their work. There isn't a kid on the planet who doesn't like shiny.
