Seneca High School Winners Workshop

Theresa received first place in the 2014 Clay In Mind competition which resulted in Seneca High School winning a free workshop done by artist, Josie Bockelman. The workshop was done on May 30th in a classroom with teacher Ms. Cichon and 24 of her students. Students learned how to make the figure out of clay. Josie brought in examples of her work, textbooks, and example experiences from her years as an artist for students to view and gain knowledge on how to make a figure to proportion.

Students began the lesson by doing yoga in the hallway. Josie led them in doing yoga poses for a few seconds, the kids looked a little silly but it got their creative juices flowing. Once she yelled stop, students froze in the position they were in. Josie then exclaimed to think about how the body moves... and to think about how your joints are connected and the limitations of your body. After doing this for a few minutes, we went back into the classroom to do another short exercise.

The next exercise was to do a gesture drawing but in sculptural form. Before beginning this she had wooden dowel rods to show the students that the human body could be measured out by the amount of head lengths. Standing back, Josie took the dowel rod and measured out a head length and counted down roughly between 7-8 heads to create the human body. Arms and legs were also measured with the human head to show that it roughly took 2 heads to make an entire arm and leg.

Once students saw this rule of measurement, students each took a small ball of clay and got into groups of 3-4 students. One student was in the center holding a pose while the others quickly sculpted the shape of their body. We did this for roughly 2 minutes each and then switched to the next model in the group. Students were able to quickly make a rough sculpture that resembled the human body with limbs. This step prepared the students for what they were about to do next.

The director of Clay In Mind, Ms. Kirchner propped herself up on a table along with a chair and sat still for an hour while students studied, and replicated a small maquette sculpture of her. Students were given a pound of clay and had to create a lump that represented the chair to build their figure on. Remembering the proportions of the angles of the legs to the chair helped make the legs to scale. Students remembered the length of the arms were the same as two dowel rods so that also helped to make the arms to proportion. The last touches were done once the head was sculptured and attached. At the end of the lesson, students had their own maquette sculpture of a figure.

Josie's examples and interactive techniques helped facilitate the students' creation of the human figure. The Clay In Mind board was very fortunate to have Josie Bockelman from The Clay Studio judge Clay In Mind this year along with demonstrating her techniques of making the human form. Next year will bring another artist with new techniques to teach the next winner of Clay In Mind.