Ceramics Boot Camp

Before my students had a full choice ceramics project, I wanted them to try out several different techniques so we had a "boot camp".

1. Pinch pots with sgraffito- Students used red clay to make a pinch pot then coated part of it with white slip. We found that it worked best to use a fan brush to apply the slip and to do one stroke with each dip in the slip so that it wouldn't mix with the red clay underneath. When the slip had set up, students scratched or carved designs to reveal the contrasting color underneath. We finished with a clear glaze.

2. Simple Slabs- Students learned the basics of slab construction and slump molds and chose one to try. We found a suggestion on measurements for mugs so those were very popular. 

 One of my advanced students wanted to test image transfer so we round a tutorial that involves painting slip over a laser print. The slip resists the ink. When it dries you can wet the back of the paper with the sponge and use a rib to transfer. It can be a little tricky to get the slip to the right consistency. I'm looking forward to testing this out more next year.

3. Coils. We had a contest to see who could roll the longest coil and I demonstrated how to build with coils. Some left the coils visible and some smoothed the surface.

My advanced students didn't have a boot camp but I asked each of them to make a slab teapot. We followed the steps for a 30 minute slab teapot from Ceramic Arts Daily, but ours took longer than 30 minutes. Most were finished in 2-3 class periods. 

In my next post, I'll share some of the choice projects!

4th Grade Asian Dragons

I saw an Asian style dragon on Pinterest a while back that was made with a coil. That seemed simple enough, so it was one of the first ideas I collected for our East Asian study this fall. The coil dragon I saw came from A Faithful Attempt. To begin the project, I showed an East Asian dragons PowerPoint to my students. I'd be happy to share this resource later if anyone is interested*. It's not the prettiest PowerPoint ever, but I did put a lot of work into finding specifics on dragons from China, Japan, and Korea so could go beyond "uh, they have dragons in Asia." We spent a couple minutes talking about the differences between Western and Asian dragons- there are quite a few! Did you know that Asian dragons didn't usually have wings? They could use magic to fly without them. Also, the bodies are more serpentine and Asian dragons spent more time being benevolent than, oh, burning down castles and the like. 

*Here's the PowerPoint!

Dragons

*I had a couple students ask me "Are dragons real? You're talking about them like they're real!" I just told them that some people think they were, some people think they were imagined after discovering dinosaur fossils or something like that. But, they are part of the culture and the legends, so it's easier to talk about them as if they are real.

Also, did you know you can tell if a dragon is from China, Japan, or Korea by counting the toes/claws? Each culture claims that dragons started in their country and has a reason for the different number of claws. Chinese dragons have 5, Korean have 4, and Japanese have 3. In China they said that dragons lost toes as they traveled east, in Japan they say that dragons grew toes as they traveled west, and in Korea they either lost a toe from traveling east or grew a toe from traveling west. You may notice that our dragons don't have feet (and therefore look more like Nessie, our underwater ally, than an Asian dragon). This was due to time constraints. By the time most of the students got their coil dragons secure enough to stand, they maybe had time to add scales, but most did not have time to add feet.

For the studio portion, the students rolled their clay into a coil, shaped it in a way that it supported itself and stood up, then added details- all in about 20 minutes! I only see my intermediate kids for 40 minutes every other week so they have to complete their handbuilding in one class period. In the second class period, the students used acrylic paint to add color and detail to their dragons. My intermediate school was randomly selected by an area Walmart for their teacher appreciation program and EVERY teacher in my building received a $50 gift card for classroom use! How awesome is that? I used a good chunk of my money to buy acrylic paint, even some metallic paint which was a BIG hit.

Clay Projects

Here is a little recap of the clay projects I did with my K-3rd students in the last couple of weeks.

Kindergarten- Knee Bowls

I got this idea from one of the other Art teachers in my district.  I showed the students how to make slabs then they formed them over their knees to make bowls.

First Grade- Pinch Pot Turtles

I first saw this idea on Deep Space Sparkle done with 4th grade students.  I wanted an animal project for 1st grade since they spend quite a bit of time covering animals in science and I needed it to be a pretty sturdy project to give it a decent shot at making it home in one piece.  This worked pretty well with my students.  We made pinch pots, attached legs and heads using the Three S's: score, slip, squish.  (THANK YOU to whoever posted about this, I'm sorry I can't remember you!)  We also added a 4th S for "smooth."