Clay is an exciting, pliable material whose tactile qualities have an immediate appeal for young children. Thinking in three dimensions demands an imaginative leap, and the plastic, malleable nature of clay makes it an ideal medium for learning about form. Work in clay provides opportunities for expressing understanding of form through pottery, sculpture and combined techniques. It is also a very suitable medium for creating texture and for work in combining form, texture and pattern. Slab-building provides opportunities for the child to experiment with the organisation of units in space as an additional way of constructing.
Both the sculptural and the craft aspects of clay should be given adequate time, but in the absence of a kiln the emphasis should be on sculptural expression. It is important too that children are introduced to a wide range of craft pottery and sculpture. Like painting and drawing, clay as a medium can be returned to many times. Papier mâché is suggested as an additional medium for developing form, especially for largescale work with more experienced children.
Starting points could include
Imaginative creatures from stories, poems, songs, drama, television series, films, pantomime or the circus, as well as friends, family members and family pets, are ideal subjects for working in clay. Children should be encouraged to create sturdy figures that will stand or sit, otherwise they will be frustrated to find that their figures fall over. The emphasis should be on creating form and on capturing some of the essential characteristics of the object or figure such as strength, roundness, fragility, or robustness. Group work may be appropriate at times, where children share ideas in developing a theme or project.
Children should have opportunities to see sculpture (or slides or prints) of a variety of styles and periods, for example the work of Moore, Rodin, Michelangelo, and Brancusi, as well as pottery from pre-Columbian Central and South America and from the Benin and Ashanti people of Africa.
EXEMPLAR 18 - Clay: an imaginative humanoid figure (first and second classes)
Children's ability to use clay as a medium for expressing ideas develops from experience in handling and manipulating it, and this in itself can act as a very important stimulus. Focusing on materials and tools gives children opportunities to
- learn the skills needed to form and change clay through a need for expression
- use clay in increasingly purposeful ways
- enjoy the freedom to use clay in imaginative ways.
Working in clay is often very satisfactory for young children, and they should have ample opportunities to explore the medium without having to produce a particular 'finished' object. Children who have not had much experience of clay will need to see, feel and talk about how it responds when they pull, pound, prod or roll it. They will learn from experience to distinguish between shapes that lie flat and solid forms that stand up on their own. Experience in handling and manipulating clay will help them to appreciate and enjoy the satisfactory look and feel of the forms, patterns and textures they create, and to take a more analytical approach to interpreting form in clay. Children also need opportunities to use tools experimentally to discover the kinds of textures they can create while developing form.
Clay has several advantages over Plasticine: for example, children can be given larger quantities to work with, because it is cheaper and easier to handle, and, unlike Plasticine, its uniform colour helps to keep children focused on the experience of pure form. Plasticine is useful for small-scale work. Clay can also be used in conjunction with other materials, for example to make a hump mould for masks in papier mâché.
The resources needed for developing form in this curriculum include:
- terracotta or school buff clay
- a variety of wooden modelling tools, for example shaped lollipop sticks
- rolling-pins
- a variety of oddments used to create pattern and texture
- a clay-cutting tool, for example approximately 0.5 m of heavy nylon gut attached at each end to a small wooden dowel
- a 'harp' with adjustable wire for cutting slabs of clay evenly
If firing:
- a strong wire loop solidly attached to a piece of dowel, which would be useful for hollowing out clay pieces before firing
- slip trailers (containers)
- a kiln, which is best kept in a separate room or shed.
Children first develop a sense of form from within, through awareness of their own bodies and shapes. They develop awareness of form in the world around them through looking closely at natural and manufactured objects and noticing their inherent form. Stones, bones, driftwood, shells, trees, roots, animals, birds, humans, clouds, hay-stacks, stones, mountains, toys and household objects are examples of these. Classroom displays of visually stimulating objects and, where appropriate, opportunities to observe objects, animals and figures in situ are very helpful.
Children should be encouraged to study an object from different points of view to see it in the round, and more experienced children could sketch it. The expressive response of younger children should be appreciated, rather than having them strive for exact representation. More keenly observed elements, such as the tilt of the head, the sway of the body or the curve of the back, may be interpreted by more experienced children.
EXEMPLAR 19 - Clay: A head in clay (fifth and sixth classes)
Working with clay
Children should be encouraged to form their work and to understand the difference between this and simply drawing on its surface: for example, they should make the form of a head and the bumps and hollows on a face, rather than make a flat surface with lines to suggest features. They should be encouraged also to turn their pieces around as they work. Whirlers are very handy for this purpose, but the work can easily be turned around if it is built on a piece of plastic bag.
Solid forms without delicate projections are very robust and focus attention on form itself. The children will want to make all sorts of animals, creatures and cars, but sometimes it is a good idea for them to make a simple abstract form that feels good in the hand. They could experiment with relating two or more such forms to each other, for example by balancing one form on another.
Reusing clay
Left-over clay should be collected and stored in heavy-duty plastic bags. Smaller amounts of clay in individual bags are easier to handle than one large bag. If in doubt about the quality of the plastic bag, use more than one and wrap them tightly around the clay to seal in the moisture. If the clay becomes a little hard, cover it with wet rags for a while before packing it away. Clay that has been allowed to dry out should be placed in water in a plastic bin.
It should then be left to reach the desired state (i.e. surplus water is drawn off) on a plaster bat or heavy unsealed wooden block before it can be reused.
Firing clay
A small kiln is a worthwhile piece of equipment for primary schools. Some schools may find that they can come to an arrangement to have work fired by a local secondary school or potter. However, great value can be derived from working with clay, even where there is no possibility of firing the work. Pottery that has been fired is more durable and will not revert to clay when wetted. Earthenware does not become waterproof, however, until it has been glazed and fired a second time. When buying clay and glazes, check their firing ranges.
Slab-built structures will not endure unless fired. If clay sculptures are to be fired they must be hollowed out, otherwise they will crack apart, as the outer edge of the clay will fire faster than the centre. A thickness of about 1cm is usually safe. If a seam of workable clay is available near the school, it could be a very worthwhile project for the children to dig some up and experience the whole process from original raw material to finished piece, fired, for example, in a sawdust kiln. Clay used for firing must be free of air pockets: as delivered, it is already air-free. If they are not fired, sturdy pieces of ware may be coloured in tempera paint and varnished, but they will not be waterproof.
Working with papier mâché
Papier mâché has a number of advantages as a medium for sculpture in the primary art programme: it is cheap, consisting of just newspaper and wallpaper paste, and when it is dry it is very light and so is suitable for use where clay would not do, for example in masks to be worn by the children. It is also an excellent material in which to do very large work. Paste for papier mâché should be mixed to a thicker consistency than that suggested on the packet, otherwise the piece may fall apart as it dries. With a thick paste, only about three layers of pasted paper will usually be necessary, each laid in a different direction from the last.
There are two types of papier mâché:
Making a form in papier mâché is not quite as easy as in clay, and if junior classes have a good programme in three-dimensional work in clay and construction there is really no need for them to use papier mâché. If they do use it, pulp mâché is the easier to form, but it takes a long time to dry out and is not as responsive as clay.
A strip mâché piece is built on a central support but should not be just a repetition of the supporting mould, unless the children have formed the mould themselves. Inventive modelling should be part of the process. The very popular papier mâché form that is moulded around a balloon, for example, could be given a raised relief pattern, or the modelled features of some kind of character. If these features are, for example, rather large ears or noses, a crumpled piece of dry paper could be stuck on and held in place by more strips of pasted paper, which would cover over any unevenness. The balloon should be Vaselined over to prevent the papier mâché from being sucked in as it starts to dry and shrink and as the balloon loses air.
An underlying clay mould could be made by the children for a mask, for example. Undercuts in the mould that would make it impossible to remove the finished mask should be avoided: a hooked nose or an undercut chin can be added on in papier mâché. The clay should be covered in cling film to prevent the papier mâché from sticking to it, and the children will be interested to discover that they can make more than one mask on the same mould and can vary them subtly.
Plastic boxes, bottles or cardboard cylinders -- or even crumpled newspaper held in shape by string or wire -- could form the support core for all sorts of imaginative characters, for example a strange fish, bird, monster or puppet. More experienced children could make a wire skeleton for a character in papier mâché, using short strands of florists' wire, for example. All sorts of bric-àbrac, crumpled paper, chunks of polystyrene or little boxes could be used as a base for an invented landscape, for example a desert island with cliffs, sea arches, caves, or a mysterious landscape on another planet. In senior classes, a little chicken wire could be added to the supporting materials.
Chicken wire and papier mâché are ideal for creating very large forms. Keep a supply of old leather or gardening gloves for use when cutting it. More experienced children could design and make large pieces in this medium, for example enormous heads, dragons, props for drama: look at the work of, for example, Niki de Saint Phalle and at carnival characters.
Form: papier mâché resources
- newspaper
- cardboard scrap
- paste or PVA glue
- tempera paint
- wire, chicken wire
- coloured paper, fibres and oddments.