Our Class Flock

Today in class, we started to make our flock of birds. Two nice artists came into the classroom and taught us how to make them. These two artists, Mrs. Sue and Cathy Hooper, had been here once before and are going to come back in the spring! To make the birds, it was easy and fun to do, but they were really messy too! We had to use newspaper to make the shape of the bird, then wrap it in tape, and here comes the messy part! The two ladies passed out some plaster bandages and tubs of water. You had to dip the bandages in the water to make them
sticky, and then wrap them around the taped paper that were going to be our birds. I'm sure everyone was tingling with excitement! (I know I was.) There were little holes in the bandages, so when we dipped the bandages into the water, the holes were covered with plaster, making the bandages even more slippery! But we had to stick the plaster on our birds fast because if didn't, they would dry on the table and it would be hard to get the plaster off.

The artists explained to us that everyone's birds would be different, and that was okay. They said that they might not be exactly how you thought they would be, but that was okay too. And they were right! Some people said they were going to make robins that ended up as sparrows, or penguins that ended up a owls! I still don't know what type of bird mine will be, but maybe I could make up a bird. That would also be okay because it would be completely new and therefore, just more original! Anything is possible in art! You might mess up on something, but that's nothing to stress about because you can change it up, and soon you might find it was beautiful even with your mess up!

The artists came back again the next day so we could finish our birds. We had to stick in the feet and wrap them in plaster too so they would stay where you wanted them. When all the birds were dry, we painted them. Our choices for colors were red and blue, blue and yellow, or red and yellow. I picked red and blue to make purple. The purple dried as black with small purple streaks. It was really cool! Anyways, I think everyone's bird is beautiful and hopefully everyone will like their birds.

Check out their studio website:

http://artathooperstudios.com/gallery/artists/2