painted penguins

Today y4 painted their clay penguins. We had a little production line/process going where we painted all the white bits, then the black and finally the beaks. We decided not to add eyes as they might have spoiled the overall effect. 

 

Even the misshapen and wobbly ones look good en masse.

Next time - polar bears, with 'proper' clay, fired and glazed!

YAY!

The first firing in anger was a success - nothing cracked or exploded! This was the sight on opening the kiln.

 

Some of the bowls have a lovely mottled glazing effect - purely by accident rather than design.

glazed

Today in y2 we decorated our rice bowls. They had already been underglazed both inside and out in white so we added patterns using a dark blue glaze.

 

Here are some of the bowls before their final firing;

 

We're keeping everything crossed. It's the first time we've tried anything like this and I've warned the children that some bowls may still crack under the intense heat!

outer space

The real littley's, our FS1 children (3 & 4 yr olds) are learning the song about '5 little men in a flying saucer' this week. So, in art we made some planets by dropping inks onto dampened filter paper. We also did some marbling.

 

In a small group we drew the 5 little men using the legendary 'A is for...(alien)'.

p..p..p..penguins

 Today in y4 we moulded some penguins. We first of all flattened a ball of clay and then moulded it around our paper-towel covered thumbs.

 

 

We added broken lollipop sticks for wings and a short length of dowel for the beak.

 

We used air-drying clay so no worries about the wooden bits being burnt in the kiln! We referenced Anthony Gormley's 'The Field' and are hoping that 70+ penguins looks like a reasonable colony.
We'll paint them next week when they've dried.

cityscapes

Excited - because the 'rice bowls' are currently being bisque fired in batches. I'll underglaze them all in white before the children add the blue patterning in their next lesson.

Meanwhile, y6 have continued with their rivers/perspective theme and have created some collaged cityscapes.

 

rice bowls

Today y2 made a start on their rice bowls. We used the tried and trusted thumb pot method.

 

We enlarged the hole using thumbs and fingers.

We smoothed and shaped until we arrived at a bowl shape.

We even added a foot from a sausage of clay.

All fingers and toes are now crossed so that they don't explode, crack or fall apart in the kiln. They are on a drying programme at the moment and then will be bisque fired ready for decorating next week.