Thursday, April 26, 2018

I Love This Clay Project

I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for new clay projects.  And in 18 years of teaching (HOW did THAT happen????) I've never done fifth grade the same way twice.  
With my fifth graders this year, I decided to look at some modern ceramic artists and found Christy Keeney and Liz Scrine--two working British artists.  Go ahead and look them up, their work is ah-maze-ing! I also had some designer silkscreens from Mayco that I really wanted to try out (I like the bugs best, but my students liked them all).
Our first step was to design and build a slab person, here some of them are after firing (apparently I was too excited about the next step to take any photos of that).  So here's some photos of them after we silkscreen'ed on them:

It's very obvious that she was inspired by Christy Keeney's work.


This student has done NOTHING all year,
ceramics may be 'his thing.'


I do love this one!

This is a special needs friend, and he did the BEST on his silkscreen.

  
The process for this is pretty simple, you draw around the image and cut it out (larger than your outline).  Then USE TAPE ('cause that wet-it-and-it-will-stick that it says on the directions totally does not work) to attach the silkscreen (smooth side down) onto the bisque fired clay.  Next, mix a small amount of glaze (we used Stroke & Coat) with the silkscreen medium powder (it's about $4/container and I forgot I had some and ordered two more, so it's obvious that I now have enough for the next 150 years) and use your finger to smoosh it through the silkscreen.  I did this at one table with small groups of students as they were working on another project, then put them immediately in the kiln for a second firing.  When done correctly, the detail is awesome!
So, after they were all fired again, we used tempera block paint to paint them:





Here they are all done, dry and ready to go home:





Hard to see in this photo, but the spider is amazing!


There is a silkscreen'ed ladybug under the rainbow.

I just love this one, even though she missed silkscreening.

Gotta have some rainbow hair!



It's Hillary Clinton.
Because of course it is.

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