Day of the dead

Our thriving art club at Pelham school has 2 groups – KS1 and KS2.

Our younger group have been looking at sculpture and relief with Louise Pasquill this term in a project themed around the Day of the Dead!

Children began by  experimenting with clay, pattern and texture in the first 2 sessions. Using a symbolic language they built a story of marks onto a  design for a mask.

The design was transferred to a card template made from a paper plate.

Continuing with the theme of the ‘Day of the Dead’ the children looked at skeletal art. We studied the anatomy of bones in a crocodile. This exercise got the children thinking about how bones are made up of different shapes, how they slot together and can grow and reduce in size, like along a tail.

Here are some examples of sketches the children created using cotton buds, masking tape and scissors.

We then went on to make our masks in clay.

We gave it a whitewash base and then added colour using our cardboard designs to copy.

A small loop was added to hang the sculptures – a perfect spooky decoration!