K-1 Painting - Exploring Paste Paper and Clay to express

water
Woven into the exploration of 2-dimensional brush tempera paintings were two
different mediums paste paper and clay. Looking at water through the lens of
different mediums helped the children think about lines and shapes in other ways.
The paste paper offered a thick, textured surface and the clay moved the expression
of water to the 3rd dimension. These two mediums were introduced especially for
the kinesthetic and tactile learner, although all students benefited from these
explorations.
Paste paper is one of the oldest decorated papers used by bookbinders, and can be
found in books that are centuries old. Sometimes bookbinders would use up their
leftover bookbinding paste by throwing some pigment into the paste and brushing
it out on some paper to make decorative papers to then use in bookbinding. One of
the distinctive qualities of paste paper is the rich 3-dimensional patterns and
design. This is achieved because then the paste is first applied to the paper and a
pattern made in the paste, it is thick, with peaks and valleys. As the paper dries, the
paste is sucked flat into the paper, leaving a 3-dimensional pattern on a 2dimensional surface.
Tools: Paste paper is essentially glorified finger painting, and this is where
creativity comes in. The children used old credit cards, forks, combs, and brushes.
They were encouraged to move their arms, move their bodies, stretch and scrape.
It's okay to make a mess on the table and floor. It's all part of the process.

The student's started off slowly and carefully. Pretty quickly, they got the idea that it was okay to
make a mess. They made connections to their brushstroke explorations as they moved their
bodies shoulders, elbows, wrists and finger joints to make lines and shapes.

Learning to manipulate the tools.

"This is fun! I can use my mom's credit card."

Learning to move their bodies and arms.

" Buff and blue make green."

Expressing water using the medium of clay

The children took another short learning pause from their tempera paintings and
explored the plastic medium of clay. How can you express water calm, gentle,
rough, stormy, choppy, tiny waves, medium waves, and giant waves in clay? This
was their challenge for the day.
Tools --their hands and fingers, eyes and ears, and their imaginations.
The children learned hand-building techniques to create water textures in clay.
With their hands and fingers they poked, pounded and pinched the clay to make
calm water. They are beginning to understand the responsive and manipulative
nature of clay. They learned that by gently pounding the clay with their fists, or by
gently tapping the clay with their fingers, they could get calm water. But using
more strength in the pounding or tapping would give them a choppy, rough water.
They figured it out by playing with the clay and using their imaginations!
Goal-- transpose this 3-D language of the clay to their 2-D tempera paintings.

Pinching gentle, medium waves.

Chopping softly for calm water.

Raindrops on the water are quickly transformed into yummy pepperoni pizzas!

A big wave.

A rainbow curved wave.

"We should join our waves together to make a big ocean." Playing and working
collaboratively seems to come naturally.

Working back and forth from 2-dimensional to 3-dimensional, and making

connections between different mediums helps to develop an artist with a facile
mind.