Vera went for her first art workshop the other day at WowArt Learning Studio. She was going to learn how to make seashells using DAS clay, which is a quick-drying clay.

She first did a warm-up exercise — drawing seashells on paper.

Hers is the one on the right. She can roughly draw the shape, but her lines did not reach the outline of the shell.

After the warm-up, she was asked to draw seashells on a foam board using crayons.

Here’s our art teacher asking: “What colour would you like, Vera?”

Poke, Pinch, and Press

After drawing the shells, she was given a satay stick and asked to poke holes along the outline of the seashell, and along the lines on the shell. She patiently did this, with the encouragement from her teacher. I liked that he managed to sustain her interest through this part of the session by turning it into a game. As in they took turns poking holes, a different number each time, sometimes 3, sometimes 5.

After the holes were poked, her teacher helped to ‘join the dots’ and etch the outline of the seashell and its lines.

Then she was given the DAS clay and asked to ‘pinch it like a pancake’. The clay seemed a little tough so she took a while to knead it flat, and the teacher chipped in to help. When the clay base was ready, he cut up the ‘holey’ foam board into the individual seashell pieces, and Vera then placed these pieces onto the clay base, and together they pressed them really hard into the clay to form imprint of the shells. (Actually he did the most work here as Vera didn’t want to stand up and use her body weight. =P)

After that, she used real seashells and pressed them into the clay to form nice lined patterns. Then she used the satay stick to poke holes into the clay, to resemble sand.

Next, she used the hair dryer to dry the clay, to prepare it for the painting stage.

She was asked to choose 3 colours, and she went with blue, purple, and yellow. Then she used a small sponge to dab the paints onto the clay mould.

After that, she used the hairdryer again to dry the paint. Then she brushed glue onto a board wrapped with aluminium, and finally mounted her seashell mould onto this board. The teacher then helped to paste this onto black paper and also pasted the foam pieces on it as well.

Here’s our little artist looking mighty pleased!

My thoughts:

This was an interesting lesson, and it was nice to go through the process of transferring a self-created pattern using a foam board, onto a clay mould. I liked the way the teacher guided her step-by-step, and was able to engage her and sustain her interest through the 75-min class. (He even encouraged her to extend her lines to the outline of each shell she drew.) I also liked that she was exposed to different materials — ranging from clay to crayon to satay stick, and paintbrush to apply the glue.

Most of all, she had fun! The fact that she was able to express her independence and creativity (through choice of colours, design and placement of the shells, etc) was a bonus!

And…here’s a bonus for you guys!

I’ve got TWO holiday workshop passes (worth $70) from WowArt to give away, to ONE lucky reader.

One pass grants entry to one 75-min workshop. Alternatively, you can use both passes at one time for a longer 2.5-hr session. (Suitable for 4-12 year old kids)

All you need to do is:
1. Like WowART Learning‘s Facebook page
2. Like mamawearpapashirt‘s Facebook page (if you haven’t already)
3. Leave a comment here after doing so, saying why you would really like to win this.
4. To double your chances, share this post by clicking the ‘share’ button at the bottom of this post. Then leave ANOTHER comment saying “shared”. It’s important that this is a separate comment so that you will be automatically allocated another number when I put the numbers through a random generator to pick the winner.

That’s it!

Contest closes on 3 Jun 2012, 11.59pm. Open to Singaporeans / PR only. The winner will be randomly selected, and notified via our Facebook page and email.

If you’d like to see the variety of workshops lined up for the June holidays, you can view their workshop schedule on their WowArt’s Facebook page.

Good luck everyone!

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UPDATE: And we have a winner…Congrats Mark Ting! I truly hope your boys enjoy the classes!

Thanks everyone for participating in this giveaway!

This post is sponsored by WowArt Learning Studios.