Claymation / Stop-Motion Animation

Claymation is an animation technique used with clay figures. The students first created a story board and then built their clay models.

After creating the clay figures, they started snapping photos! They took lots of shots and tried their best to make the figure movement smooth.

Claymation / stop-motion animation lesson teach patience, attention to detail, photography and communication skills. Creating a movie from a lot of hard work is rewarding as well!

Check out this final animation created by grade 5 and 6 studensts.

Grade 5 Self-portrait

Fifth graders worked on the self-portraits. They observed their face features closely looking in the mirrors and studied shading technique with a 4B pencil. And then they used their favorite colors to paint the background.

Relief Print of Haida Art

Grade 4 and 5 students learned about Haida Art. We looked at different kinds of art forms of Haida Art, such as totem poles, masks, and prints. We noticed Haida artists simplified animal forms and used clear lines. They also learned about Robert Davidson who is one of Canada's most important contemporary visual artists and a Northwest Coast native of Haida descent.

Robert Davidson - Beaver

Totem pole in Vancouver

They created their own Haida style design for this printmaking project. They were encouraged to use one animal image for their design. They chose an animal that is commonly used in Haida Art, such as an eagle, whale, beaver, frog and bear.

They learned used a relief printmaking technique for this project.

A relief print is an image created by a printmaking process where protruding surface of the printing plate are inked and recessed areas are ink free. We used pressed foam-board printing plate and transferred their idea sketch on the plate. Students learned the printing process and its routine. They inked their plate with white paint first and then added second color with a brayer. They placed the plate on a black paper, facing the inked-side down, and covered it with a paper to rub the plate.

foam-board plate and its relief print

The finished prints are displayed in the hallway, outside of their classrooms. Awesome job!

Character Design

Grade 4 and 5 students were working on a Monster Unit in BCC art studio. First class in this unit, they played an "exquisite corpse" game to create very interesting and strange looking monsters. "Exquisite Corpse" game is a collaboration drawing of three people. It is a method by which a collection of images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds drawing of head, body, or leg part of a creature in sequence. This helped their brain be more creative when creating their own creature.

 

After finishing their creature drawing, they transferred the drawing onto a black construction paper. 

Before they colored the drawing, they did a color study using oil pastel, exploring gradation, and cross hatching two colors. They used the color study knowledge to design their creatures.

Here are the finished work by Grade 4 and 5.
Every creature has interesting features that make all of them so unique!

Students also made up a story about their characters and we shared them together. It was so much fun hearing all the stories.

Environment Day Art Activity

Friday Art Activity
The theme of April was "Environment and Social Responsibility".
BCC artists used recycled bottle caps to create collaborate pieces. They learned that they could create amazing artwork using recycled materials and were able to demonstrate the importance of recycling.

Here are photos of the art-making process.

 Here are finished pieces of the day. They are displayed in the lobby and the library.

Bottle Cap Tower

Detail view

"Be Kind to Our Earth"