Test Trial.

While looking at one of my favorite clay blogs
(ok, i don't really have a lot that I look at)
I noticed a really neat technique for decorating the surface of clay.
You can see it here.
I have worked with masking out areas to create a glaze pattern, and I've used wax resists. I have never used paper stencils and was curious as to how she got them to stick.
I contacted the artist and had a correspondence with her about the technique she used.
She created her patterns using a newsprint stencil and a thick slip.
She applied the newsprint "snowflakes" to leather hard ware and then sprayed it with water so it would stick to the surface. She then smoothed it out and applied a thick slip.

I thought I'd try it using under glaze.
Under glaze is supposed to be applied to green ware, but for this project our time restrictions would necessitate application to clay that was just rolled. Because this is not a normal practice I decided I'd do a trial run.

I also tried the technique using slip from our white clay applied to the terra cotta clay that we will be using for the ornaments.
Different clays shrink at different rates, so of course I needed to do a test run and see if the slip would stay on our terra cotta as it went through the process.
I did the test bisque fire and we will see how it turns out.

If all goes well, this will be our project for next week.

Naturally Jakie wanted to help out, so I found something to do so that he could be both "helpful" and occupied.

Slab Houses

Here is a village of our little luminary houses.
I allowed them to dry (safely away from the hands of little Jakie).
These houses were made using our favorite slab method. Because the clay had to be close to leather hard to assemble the houses, I rolled and cut the pieces for the students. The kids designed the decor of the rest of their homes.
They finished their stamping and cutting just in time for class to end.
I was able to assemble the houses before they got too dry.

Prep Work

Sometimes I need to do some behind the scenes work to prepare for the classes. On Monday we will be making luminary houses. These will make great Christmas decor or gifts. Our clay needs to be a little closer to "leather hard" (ask you kids what this means- hopefully they remember). The stiffer clay will make it easier to assemble the houses. Basically they will have a "house kit" They will do all of the assembly and decorating and they will have to cut their own roof and form the base... so they will be putting a lot of individual work- and they won't have to ROLL OUT CLAY (which i think is not a favorite activity).

I also prepared some test tiles for our glazes. Glazes look different after they have been fired, so after these tiles have been glazed and fired, the kids will know what to expect when they glaze their work.

Angels

Last week we made Angles. UnfortunatelyI do not have a picture of student work, but they look similar to this angel. This is yet another slab project.

photo from Stuido Elan.

underglaze

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We worked for 2 weeks applying underlgazes to our finished work. Underglaze can be applied to greenware (work that is dry but had not been fired) or bisque ware. Once it has been fired it needs to be fired an additional time with a clear coat. Then they will be complete.