Ceramic Guppies

I usually do regular pinch pots with my first grade students, but this year I was inspired by all the little fish I've seen throughout art teacher blogs. These are our rendition!

I use Laguna Clay, Laguna Underglaze and finish with Duncan Dipping Glaze.

Instructions are simple....give each student a palm-sized ball of clay, form into a pinch pot, add a tail, fins, eyes and teeth/mouth/lips, scratch attach using a scoring method, write names on bottom, dry completely, fire (05), paint with underglaze and dip in glaze, fire again (04).

This is an easy shape for young hands to make. Give them lots of opportunity to create different sized fins or tails, even eyelashes! My time with my students was limited to 40 minutes of clay time, so I kept the children moving along with the basic shapes. If you need to break up the project, use a zip lock bag to keep the clay moist.

This would be a great project for air-dry clay and acrylic paints...might try that next year as kiln work is time-consuming!

Ceramic Wizard Tutorial

I've seen pictures of these cute little wizards on many art sites, and in all cases; no instructions! They looked hard to me and I couldn't quite see how I would get 25 fifth grade kids to hand build one in under an hour. But once I had the slab of clay in my hands, I realize that the wizard is really just a bunch of shapes stuck together. As in all my ceramic projects, I use white Laguna Clay. It comes in 50 lb boxes, so it's a good workout lugging the stuff around. My school district supplies this brand of clay for teacher use, so that's why I use it. You may want to check out other brands. And just so we're clear, this is not the air dry type of clay (although that would work fine). This is for firing in the kiln. So here's how we did it....

Note: Before we get started, it's important to have some knowledge of working with clay and kilns before attempting this lesson. That said, ceramic clay can easily be substituted for air dry clay. The end results will be different but only in texture, not form.

Step One: Forming the Body, Head and Arms

This step is fairly simple. Basically, I give the kids one hunk of clay. I cut it directly from the slab, so each child's section is approximately 2" x 5" x 2". With a clay cutter (plastic knife is fine), cut off a 1 1/2" square section for a head. Roll the square piece of clay into a ball. This will become the wizard's head!
Then, cut a larger piece of clay for the body (about 3" long). Tap the edges of the rectangle on the table so that the shape becomes round. Stick your thumb up into the bottom of the rectangle and pinch around the edging to form a skirt or robe. Be careful not to press too hard or the robe will become thin and will be susceptible to cracking.
Do the same for the two arms. The rectangles will be smaller, but the technique is exactly the same.

Step Two: Attaching the Body Parts

This is an important step and not nearly as fun as building the body parts. The kids need to score both sides of the clay in the spots where the two will meet. I call this "Scratch Attach" but you can call it whatever you want as long as the kids do it. If the pieces aren't attached securely, they WILL fall apart in the kiln and you WILL have wizards heads rolling around the kiln shelves.

Step Three: Wizard Hat and Cape

To make the hat, take whatever square of clay is left over and form it into a pyramid. Tap the bottom of the pyramid to get a nice flat bottom, then pinch the bottom edges to form a brim. Again, be careful not to pinch too hard or the brim will be too thin. Press your thumb into the bottom so that the hat will fit nicely onto the head...but don't attach yet...

To make the cape, take some clay and roll it flat with a broad tip marker. Using a clay cutter or plastic knife, cut out the shape of the cape. Scratch attach the cape to the back of the neck. Leave the cape opened at the bottom. It looks clever to have the cape billowing over the body rather than stuck tight.

Step Four: Making the Hair

This is a popular step. Get out your garlic presses and extrude swirly, skinny, pliable hair. Scratch attach the hair to the scalp, then put on the hat. Some hair can be draped around the shoulders, used for a beard and in some cases, as a belt!

For the final step, and this can be done by you, take a thick pencil (the kind used in Kindergarten) and stick it all the way from the base of the wizard up to the hat. This does two things: it helps stick all the sections together and ensures that the clay dries faster (no moisture; no explosions in the kiln).

Before the clay dries, check to make sure that all hats are securely fastened. It takes about 10 days for the wizards to dry. If in any doubt, do not put into kiln. I've had many pieces blow up in the kiln because of moisture, so don't let that happen to you.

After the first firing, the wizards are ready to paint. I use an underglaze and then fire again, but if you are short on time, or funds, use acrylic paints to finish painting the wizards. The colors will be very intense but no firing is required.
Good Luck!

Ceramics Project: Dragons!

Fifth Graders at MountainView sculpted these dragons from a single slab of clay. It might be a good idea to have kids draw a dragon first, but this class didn't. I drew a few dragons on the white board and imposed requirements such as all dragons must have at least one head, tail and legs. Other than that, they were free to chose how their sculpted dragons should look.
By pulling an oval slab of clay into a head and legs, they were able to create the main body. To add the wings, many students chose to attach flattened pieces of clay using the "Scratch Attach" method. (Score both pieces, then dampen with water).

Ceramic Snowmen Art Lesson for Kinders

Kinder students at Foothill and MountainView created wonderful gifts for lucky parents this holiday season. With great skill and enthusiasm they created ceramic snowmen. For art teachers, this is a fairly easy lesson to do. I chose to do it with my kindergartners but it might be more suitable for first or even second grade. Some little ones, with no play dough experience, had a tough time rolling out the balls. Most did okay but that's one thing you have to watch for. The reason why I love ceramics so, is because there is no wrong way to create something, and kids instinctively know this. But the wee ones might feel a bit defeated if they can't roll a ball.

So, having said that, this is a very easy lesson with the only difficult part being the creation of the hat. I had the children roll out 4 balls. Big, med and two small balls. One of the small balls can be pinched to form a top hat (or a sunhat or knitted hat, whatever it ends up to be).

I teach the kids the "scratch attach" method of scoring the balls together, but of course, this is something the art teacher needs to check on afterwards.

After poking a pencil up through the entire snowman (helps keep the snowman from falling apart and helps the clay dry faster) I then poke holes into the sides for the arms which will be put on later (twigs from my backyard and hot glued in place).

To create the nose, the kids rolled out a tiny piece of clay, poked a hole into the face and slipped the nose into the hole. I had the kids dip the end in water before putting it in the hole.

Two firings needed. One after the clay has dried and the second one after the kids used underglaze. I use a Duncan dipping glaze after the underglaze is applied.

Happy Winter days!

March of the Penguins: Ceramic Lesson

Forty little penguins, in various shades of black, yellow and sometimes, blue, marched across the art studio this past month, completing Mr. Fenelon's and Mrs. Mancuso's art rotation for this school year.

With a wad of clay in their hands, each student received a paper printed with various sized circles indicating the size in which to roll out small balls. The feet, wings and head were approximately the same size, with the body taking up most of the clay. The kids used the pinch pot method of creating a hollow form to make the body and then attached the head. They used tools to scrape and shape a tiny beak. Some kids said the heck with that and just painted one on later. Wings were created by flattening one of the clay balls and cutting it in half. Some kids shaped their wings while others just pressed it on as is.

After the penguin was dried an fired, the kids painted their penguins using a reduced color palette of black, grey, blue, yellow and orange.

We used a dipping glaze for the final step.

How cute are theses?