Day 3: Dinosaur Busts & Dinosaur Eyes

Once again I started today with a list of expectations. I added one expectation based on observations from the day before: “If you are done with your project or waiting for something to dry, work on something else! If you don’t know what to work on ASK me and I will help you.”

I noticed that when students had any down time at all, and this especially happened if they finished all their painting pieces quickly and had to wait for them to dry, monkeying around immediately ensued. There were, of course, other things for them to work on and I began listing their option on the board so they could choose. But they still needed to be redirected by me.

For this lesson the students learned about busts and ceramic artists. We also talked about ceratopia “or horned face” dinosaurs. I figured if you’re going to make a dinosaur face, nothing could be more interesting than a horned face dinosaur.

As a started activity/extra project to work on I showed the students how to make glass “dinosaur eyes” with glass pebbles, paint, and sculpey.

I demonstrated how to make an armature for their bust with aluminum foil and tape and then demonstrated how to mold the clay around it, creating facial features and texture.

The students used the images I provided to choose a horned dinosaur or another favorite, and got to work on their clay busts. As they finished up, the dinosaur eyes became a popular activity and any leftover sculpey was used to make earrings, pendants, coins, and figurines.

The students really loved working with the clay and the sculpey.

I’m not very good with clay. I tried to make this as engaging a lesson as possible, yet of all my lessons this is the one I’d modify the most. Part of the problem was the students immediately began making busts that were too small. This is partially my fault. I knew we had limited foil in the supply and I didn’t want to crumple a bunch of it for my demonstration. However, because I made a small demonstration dino bust, the students all made dino busts about the same size.

I also would modify it in the future by demonstrating more items that could be made with the sculpey. After making a few dinosaur eyes, the students wanted to continue playing with it and molding the sculpey, but made a bunch of random things. Which I don’t mind, but if I had known how popular the sculpey was going to be, I would’ve devised a whole and longer activity around the sculpey, a diorama maybe. 

Also, for the busts, I would’ve had the students use regular clay despite the fragility. The marble clay that was in Belin-Blanks supply closet was easy to work with, but cracked terribly as it dried. We ended up gluing many of our pieces back together in the end. We spray painted our dino busts on our last day of class.