Three weeks of Clay.....

We have just finished up a mammoth 3 weeks of clay both in my classes and at Art Club at school.  I seem to have clay absolutely EVERYWHERE!  The studio is as dirty as its ever been....yet its been so so so FUN!

I just love working with clay so its also given me an opportunity to play around a bit more myself, especially on the wheel. 

The artwork produced by the children has just been amazing.  Fingers crossed it all survives the trip out to Clayworks in Dandenong (where I get it fired since I don't have a kiln) and none of them blow up in the kiln.

I usually get all the children to work on the same project yet this time I let them choose what they wanted to make.  I've given suggestions and samples of what has worked in the past and even put some of my own creations out as inspiration.  What we have ended up with is a lovely variety of clay works ranging from cups, bowls, plates, pinch pots and sculpture.

That said it made it a busy class for me helping 10 students with individual projects and helping someone on the wheel at the same time.  With 40 students coming through my classes in a week and an extra 20 with art club that is a lot of clay work over 3 weeks! Lucky there is a long weekend coming up so I can have a mini break and let the back rest up from all that leaning over.

Above are a few sneak previews of the creations.  There are a few more weeks of drying to go, then the trip to the kiln, then the trip back, then we will glaze them, then they go back to the kiln, another trip back to my studio and finally home.  Pottery is a very long slow process!  Parents / students don't expect them back until at least half way through Term 3! That said I can't wait to post about the final products.

I am sending some projects home now though.  Some children produced way more items than I could fire or some of the works were too cracked or likely to contain air bubbles to fire.  I also had quite a few wonky pots from the pottery wheel.  The children painted these items with just regular tempera paint.  Most of the pottery was produced using paper clay (I like using this as it gives me the choice of firing the items or not) so they should hold up fairly well when dry (yet are still more fragile than normal air dry clay or fired pottery).

I hope your children loved working with clay as much as I did!

Cheers
Fiona