Mosaic Tile Boxes - Student Work

I'm so excited to share these remarkable boxes.  They were made by my Intermediate 3-D students, and these poor kids had to jump thru lots of hoops on the design requirements.  But I think after they were done they appreciated all the hard work, because their results were spectacular.  

I was inspired by Laurie Mika's work and book "Mixed Media Mosaics".  She's a local So. Cal. mixed media artist.  I buy the little wooden boxes in several shapes and then the students go to town embellishing the tops with glass shards, beads, soldered pieces they make, text, fused glass they've made, and the Laurie Mika tiles they make from polymer clay.  I also ask them to limit their color palette and work to a theme.  These are the astounding results.

This first one I fell in love with as senior Ingrid Huang was making it.  Extremely eye-catching design with a lot of movement and rhythm,

and then when you open the lid, more wonderful visuals.

This stunning star box was created by senior Borah Lim,

and this striking triangular footed box was made by junior Rita Labib.  Yes, we saw her sawdust fired coil pot yesterday because Rita had 2 classes with me this last year.

This next one was another favorite by junior Joyce Le.  She has done so many creative details on this work , and she's found so many unusual beads, hardware findings and charms to incorporate into her design.  A brilliant piece Joyce!  Take a close look.

The side view is just as exciting as the top.

This next very creative piece belongs to9th grader Karisma Dev.  Love how she formed the wire pieces over top her soldered drawing.  Highly unique. 

The inside below.

And then there is this heavenly piece by junior Kevin Tang.  Kevin used his faith as inspiration, with several lovely design details on the inside.   

My students look forward to this project every year since we started doing it about 3 or 4 years ago.  It was a pleasure to show off their designs and hard work.