CERAMIC CLAY PROJECTS
1. Ceramic Piggy-Banks
Whether students want to make a piggy bank or just a small sculpture, this pinch-pot unit can easily be taught as an introduction to working with ceramic clay to Middle School or High School Students.
Video for these projects below.
2. Soft Boxes
Soft boxes are the easiest kinds of ceramic containers to make with clay slabs. Instructions are in the video.
3. Square Boxes
4. Mad Teapots
My students at Seoul Foreign School constructed “mad Teapots” in order to have a mad tea-party. The event included poetry readings from the Language arts students and music from the SFS student orchestra.
To make your own “mad tea-pot, follow the instructions in the video below.
All the sculptures below are teapots; some more successful as teapots than others. The student teapot above was done by a student from Paris. (Obviously), the other, a joke for my daughter who always sounded alarms like Chicken Little. She accused everyone else of not being alarmed enough, like frogs in water that as heated, never moved, just stayed and boiled. I said it sounded like a good band: Chicken Little and the Boiling Frogs.
This is to say, teapots can be flexible as to shape and additional functions. Most of our teapots were not very functional as teapots, but we combined our Mad Tea Party with a poetry reading from the English department, and a good time was had by all.
5. Life Masks
There is no video for this project. I applied wet plaster to students’ faces while they lay on a table, swathed in sheets. I applied Vaseline to their faces, particularly their eyelashes, and put a patch of paper towel over their eyes. The plaster heats up as it sets, so don’t mix it too thick or it will solidify too fast and become uncomfortably warm. The students need to sit up and put their heads forward to have the plaster casts removed. An alternative (shown above) is done with plaster gauze. This kind of mold is not as accurate.
