Modeling Clay Animals: A Guide to Sculpting Clay (Air-Dry, Sculpey, Molding, Art Therapy for Mental Health). This item is unavailable.Modeling Clay Animals: A Guide to Sculpting Clay (Air-Dry, Sculpey, Molding, Art Therapy for Mental Health)

A fun and instructive modeling clay book for sculpting clay! A step-by-step guide that shows children how to create whimsical clay animals by molding clay (and helps teachers and parents guide them!)

Parents, teachers, and gift givers will find:

• garden animals
• farm animals
• sea animals
• zoo animals

If you know kids struggling with anxiety, art will help! This beginner's modeling book shows how to create clay critters with easy-to-follow instructions. Parents and teachers will have a wonderful time helping kids develop their creativity!

What parents and grandparents are saying:

• We love it. A very good book for showing children and adults step-by-step how to make fab clay animals, we are so pleased with it! A lovely book for cold winter days when the children are stuck indoors for days or weeks and weeks at a time! Sculpey clay and a couple of books to make animal or any other kind of models are a great way to have fun with the children. You could use any type of clay to make the animals, but Sculpey lets you make the animals and cook'n'keep them and paint them if you want to!
• This book is very good! Easy to follow. I am not good at art, but this book really helps! Strongly recommend!
• This book is great for clay animal ideas for the beginner or child or even the clay enthusiast. Teaches you from start about clay techniques, different supplies and tricks. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking to make animals.

Gr 2-5–In this well-put-together resource, Cuxart shows readers how to make more than 50 different figures using clay and other materials. The book begins with basic tips and instructions and then devotes a page or two to each of the projects. The animals are arranged roughly by habitat, with sea creatures followed by jungle animals, farm animals, and insects. For each one there are illustrated step-by-step instructions and a photo of the final product. The instructions are primarily visual and are accompanied by a sentence or two of text. They are very clear, and even fairly young children should be able to follow the directions without much adult intervention. Some of the final products are more stylized than others, but all are appealing. The projects are designed to be made with nondrying clay, although they could be adapted for use with other mediums. Printed on heavy paper, the book has bright color illustrations and uncluttered white backgrounds. These projects are simpler and less stylized than those in Maureen Carlson's Clay Characters for Kids (North Light, 2003). A good choice for craft-book collections.–Donna Cardon, Provo City Library, UT. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

With a kid-friendly, systematic approach to basic art instruction, Cuxart offers a vibrant book that will appeal to young artists and animal lovers alike. Repetition of a few simple key shapes and a graduated approach to the level of difficulty make the modeling-clay projects approachable enough for the beginner but challenging for older children as well. These basic shapes can be molded into a host of animal forms, from cute and cuddly rabbits to a slimy, slithering snail. Chapters sort the projects into animal types, including “Animals of the Sea” and “Animals of the Farm.” The explanation of materials used is straightforward, and the tools and extra implements are readily found around the house or school. In addition, Cuxart includes interesting trivia about many of the animals featured in the book. Perfect for a rainy afternoon at home or an elementary-school art class, this will catch the eyes of girls and boys of all artistic abilities. Grades 1-4. --Erin Anderson