8th Grade Ceramics

I majored in clay back when I got my BFA and it is my first love! When I had the opportunity to teach clay during my student teaching, I was thrilled! the 8th graders first learned basic slab building techniques as well as modeling and relief sculpting when they created garden leaf faces and 'green men'. After becoming comfortable with handling clay, they moved on to making gargoyles, a really fun lesson for all. They formed their clay around an armature, created expressions while modeling faces and used a finer clay body to achieve better detail. Some of the almost finished products can be seen waiting to be fired. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of the finished gargoyles, but they painted them after they were fired with a gray stone like acrylic paint.