WATERLOO - Alexis Leavell pieced together blocks of clay with a practiced hand, dipping a sponge in water to better cement the pieces making up her 2-foot-tall tower.

"At my school, we work with clay a lot," said the 9-year-old Lincoln Elementary School student. "This isn't my first experience."

Despite that, Leavell is new to the art of castle building.

She joined other elementary- and middle school-aged children working Wednesday at the Waterloo Center for the Arts creating clay components of a castle. It was part of the three-day Gettin' Medieval workshop last week. The workshop took place in the new ceramics lab in a portion of the building remodeled as part of the recent youth pavilion construction.

The program drew Waterloo and Cedar Falls students whose schools were on spring break.

Other students were also working on the towers, which will serve as turrets in a castle.

"Once we're finished, we're going to put it all together and make a huge castle and put it on display," said 10-year-old Daniel McVicker, a student at Price Laboratory School in Cedar Falls. "Everybody's looks a lot different, and it will be really cool when it's all done."

Instructor Penny Azbill said the children were taking on the role of stone masons, who cut rock into blocks during the Middle Ages to build castles and churches. Later in the day, she said, they would be completing the castle by using flexible sheets of tin to connect together the turrets. The students would create reliefs on the tin by laying it over foam rubber and working it with wooden sticks.

"Basically, they're going to do all the embellishments with metal," said Azbill, who noted creating reliefs is another medieval art form.

Of course, some of the students embellished their clay turrets - such as the wolflike creature Aidan Flack attached to the outside of his.

"It's a gargoyle to ward off evil spirits," said the 9-year-old Cedar Falls Hansen Elementary School student. It featured a long protruding mouth and pointy ears on the top of its head.

"Mine's supposed to be a look-out tower," said Alix Wimberley, an 11-year-old Hoover Middle School student. She included a bell with a rope at the top. "I was going to make a little ladder."

She also created a figurine standing next to a basket filled with round pieces of fruit.

Another group of students was creating dragons out of clay. They have enjoyed creating with clay this week.

"You can make anything you want with it," said William Huynh, a 10-year-old from Orange Elementary School.

"You get to get dirty," added Joe Breneman, an 11-year-old from Eau Claire, Wis., visiting relatives this week.

Once the clay in their castle sufficiently dries, students will return to help fire the turrets in the center's kiln. Then they will help install the castle as an exhibit to be displayed at the center for a month.

Castle building wasn't the students' only medieval artistic task for the week.

On Tuesday, the students wrote stories and created a book decorated using illumination methods. Jenny Rose, a University of Northern Iowa art student helping with the class, said students illuminated their manuscripts by drawing a picture at the top and starting the stories with a large calligraphy letter. The stories were bound between gold-colored covers.

They also cut out medieval robes from light-weight canvas and tie-dyed the garments.

Thursday, students were to wear the garments and act out their stories. A medieval-style feast was planned at lunchtime with people filling roles such as king and queen, serfs and a jester.

On the menu was chicken legs, boiled potatoes and a variety of fruits.

"The best part is they can eat with their hands," said Azbill, as people did in medieval Europe. She noted plans to set up a big tarp in the dining area "so they can throw the bones."

Contact Andrew Wind

at (319) 291-1507 or

andrew.wind@wcfcourier.com.