Wednesday, 18 June 2014

Clay Mini Doors (and Door Plaques)


The children always get really excited when I announce its pottery in art this week.  It has to be their favourite lesson.  I always have the wheel going and they all get a go at that.  Then there is the mess factor, the water sprayers and the fact that what they make usually comes out looking pretty good!


I attend pottery classes myself and I've just made some little fairies and a fairy door for our garden (not pictured).  The idea is to glue the door to a tree or skirting board / cupboard (if using inside) so it looks as if its a door to something.   It got me thinking that this wouldn't be too hard for the children to make so that's what we did!  Since there are a few boys and I didn't want to scare them off by calling them fairy doors we named this lesson "Mini doors" as these could be a door to anything (they need to use their imaginations).  My children actually wanted to make mini doors for their Lego figures (yes there is a Lego obsession in our household).


Since I only own one wood board, one rolling pin and one pair of slats I rolled out the clay for them prior to the lesson. They could then could concentrate on cutting out, adding and drawing on their clay doors and plaques.

What you need:
  • Clay (we used school white)
  • Bamboo skewers 
  • Water
  • Stamps (optional)
  • Glazes
How to:

Doors
  • Pass out the rolled out clay slabs (these were all different shapes and sizes - yet they were around 15cm by 20cm)
  • Ask them to draw lightly (with the skewer) on the clay the shape door they want
  • Then ask them to cut it out with the bamboo skewer
  • Smooth edges
  • Add handles, door knob, mushrooms, vines, windows, stamped patterns, wood grain look etc.
  • Write name on the back 

Plaques
  • Pass out plaques (I had already rolled these, cut out and added holes)
  • Children to write and decorate their plaque
  • Write name on the back

Both were bisque fired and then glazed and then fired again.

(note - we actually made the doors last term and then glazed them at the beginning of this term so the whole process took a long time....)

The Results:




Cheers
Fiona



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