Early Childhood

How can young students develop acute perceptual skills through art-making?

Students will create a clay sunflower based on observation.

terracotta, corrugated cardboard cut to 4" (10 cm) squares, yellow underglaze, clear glaze, sunflowers or detail images of sunflowers

1. Place a sunflower on each art room table or display images of sunflowers for students to observe. Ask students what they see. Point out the pattern of the seeds and how the petals radiate from the center.
2. Tell students they will create their own sunflowers from observation using clay. First, students roll a golf-ball size piece of terracotta and flatten it to a 3" (7.5 cm) disc about 1/4" (0.5 cm) thick.
3. Students use a piece of corrugated cardboard to create a textured seed pattern on both sides of their terracotta disc.
4. For the petals, students roll 2" (5 cm) long “carrots” and flatten them. Students turn the disc over and attach the petals, carefully pinching and smoothing them in place with their fingertips. (Students may need help with this step.)
5. Students add a hole to one of the petals for hanging. Allow the pieces to dry and bisque-fire.
6. Students glaze their clay sunflower pieces and they are refired.

Did students create an accurate representation of a sunflower (center, seed patterns, petals)?

Craig Hinshaw is an art teacher and writer, and maintains a clay studio in Davison, Michigan.