Teach your students about the fun and distinctive Art Deco style with this super fun Pencil Holder activity! Your students will learn about the influences of this style and how to create Art Deco patterns, and will have a fantastic time making art out of clay!
Art Deco is a fantastic way to teach students about how cultural changes can influence Art. With so many examples, it was easy for the students to understand and explain how things like streamlining, the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb and the reaction to the austerity of WWI into luxurious living could influence a whole culture. For this project, we did not have a particular artist influence, but looked at a large range of artworks, posters, building and furniture designs and jewelry to inspire us.
This activity is well suited to Year 6 as it meets many of their outcomes easily, but I believe it would be suitable for students from Year 4-8 in terms of the skills involved.
Pictures on this page are copyrighted, please don't copy my pictures for your resources. If you would like to use my resources in your classroom they are available here.
Important to note: I am writing from my own experiences in the classroom and do not in any way guarantee these projects will work for you. Some of these project ideas are exactly as I did them in the classroom, others have changes to reflect how I would do them next time. You know your student's capabilities and behaviour best. As with anything, always check the safety of all materials and processes and read product instructions carefully before you introduce them to students. Consider the age and maturity of your students before trying any of my ideas.
Major Outcomes
Shape: Geometric, symmetry and asymmetry, motifs and fonts
Texture: Real texture, pinching, piercing, embossing, texture transfer, pressing
Use of two or more forms to create an artwork (sculpture and painting)
Factors that influence Art from different times
Appreciation of the role of Art from different times
Exploration of Artworks from different times and the influences on their own artwork
This activity is well suited to Year 6 as it meets many of their outcomes easily, but I believe it would be suitable for students from Year 4-8 in terms of the skills involved.
Materials Used
White School Clay (Aprox 0.5kg per student)
Skewers
Water in bowls with sponges
Rubber kidneys
Rolling Pin
Assorted wooden clay tools
Assorted materials for creating textures - such as stamps and forks
Acrylic Paints - Metallic ones are especially good for the luxury theme
Clear Gloss Varnish
This project took 11 one hour lessons all up, including written response time. Note: These are the recommended materials, but instead of a curved wooden clay tool, you can use a plastic spoon.
Exploration of Techniques
First, we had a close look at the influences of Art Deco. A simple information sheet with some suitable discussion questions is available here.
The discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb - This influenced Art Deco in many ways, from the motifs (such as lotus and sunburst patterns) to the luxurious use of gold and colourful semi precious stones. There was also a lot of symmetry in their designs - think King Tut's coffin mask.
The streamlining of cars - cars experienced a change in design to be more aerodynamic and fast, which created curved lines and streamline ridges in vehicles. This became a popular element of design in many items (even stationary ones!) to make it look modern. As such, curved, geometric shapes and streamline ridges are a feature of many Art Deco designs.
The end of WWI - The war years were a time of austerity and necessity. A reaction to these years was to go in the completely different direction. Art Deco was well known as a time of luxury and excess. In the early years of Art Deco, popular materials for creating items were gold, silver, ebony, ivory and jewels. Later, as the Great Depression made spending difficult, materials like chrome became more popular.
Elevator doors of the Chrystler building - note the symmetry and Egyptian lotus motif. Retrieved from Wikipedia Commons By SiefkinDR - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51876707
After this exploration, I asked the students to look at and practice creating some Art Deco motifs of their own with these design ideas in mind. I provided students with an Art Deco motif Step by Step to help them begin their designs, then they created their own.
From this, students designed a pencil holder, applying some Art Deco designs and principles.
Next, we had a good look at some of the techniques we could use to create textures in clay, such as embossing, pinching and pressing. To assist with learning these techniques, an instructional laminated sheet for the techniques (available here) and Plasticine to practice the techniques is helpful. Students labelled their draft with the techniques they planned to use.
Start Making Art!
Using the techniques we learned from our exploration, our drafts and a Step by Step with the steps for building a pencil holder, the students were off!
Building the bones of a pencil holder is very easy and I have used a simplified version of my Step by Step to make a pencil holder with Year 1 and 2 students.
Building the pencil holder is mostly done with rolling out slabs using a rolling pin, which is then wrapped around a cardboard roll. I allowed about 3 hours for building the clay part of their artwork.
From this point, students referenced their drafts and their recorded ideas to apply their designs to their clay pencil holders. I gave the students more or less free reign on this project, they could add what they liked as long as it was in the Art Deco style. Make sure students scratch their name in the base!
Tips on firing clay: The artworks need about one week to dry before going into the kiln and will be VERY fragile until then! Your artworks are ready to fire if when you touch them, they warm to your touch. (It should not feel cool- if the clay is too damp or has air bubbles it may explode in the kiln) Fire your clay to the package recommendation, which will take about 48 hours.
Finishing off...
It was important that with painting and finishing off that we continue with the Art Deco style. We looked closely at the materials and techniques employed by the Art Deco artists first - a modern application of paints and solid colour, and the use of expensive materials like gold and silver. Students then chose colours and techniques that were inspired by Art Deco pieces they had looked at.
If you feel clever, you could probably use glazes to finish this off, but I felt that using acrylic paint and a later layer of gloss varnish gave the students more freedom to express themselves through the materials and colours.
I loved the finished products the students created, they were so unique and creative and in their own way expressed what they had learned about Art Deco.
Resources
Art Deco History Pencil Holder Step-by-step
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