Slab Wraps - Student Work

It's always so much fun to see what the kids can come up with in one class period when they are told it's a quiz.  These are functional, thump and dragged vase forms, highly textural and organic.  And the best part is you don't know what you will end up with.  Very hard to control the outcome.

This is the front and side view of senior Kevin Luong.  Love the patterned tabs he put over top the seam.

Here is the construction method.  The students start with a very thick slab of clay.  They take all kinds of stamps and tools and make marks all over the top of slab.  then they take the thick slabs outside to the concrete and use the thump and drag technique to stretch them out like seniors Binny Singh and David Awada are doing above.

Then they fold them over top a rolling pin and walk them inside the classroom to blow dry so they will hold the folded shape as senior Philip Hwang is doing below.  And yes, for those of you who grew up in the 70's, that is the original Maxi blow dryer from my youth, the first blow dryer on the market.  In the late 60's my mom used to make me put my head/hair on the ironing board and she would iron it straight.  Thank God for the invention of the blow dryer.  Probably should take it to Pawn Stars in Vegas and get $50  for it.   LOL  Since we do this assignment in one class period with 32 kids, I have about 5 blow dryers going the whole period.

Below are senior Nikki Shah and junors Aditi Ramesh and Shamara Mustafa waiting in line for a blow dryer.

Love the look of senior David Awada's piece, it reminds me so much of an ancient tree trunk.  Also really like how he finished it off with oxide staining and glazes. 

This is Binny's finished piece.  Notice the front of each piece has a seam where the kids overlapped the edges.  Also notice that both Binny and David used the same xox stamp to embellish with.  Both boys put glaze inside their vases so they will hold water.

This next one is Philip's finished in rutile oxide stain with no glaze in the inside.  So this piece is purely for sculpture.  

This next work was done by senior Lilith Huang.  Both hers and the piece below by senior Sandra Osuji have wonderful stamped clay balls along the seam edge to add interest to the pieces.  Also, Sandra's piece  was first stained with red iron oxide then dipped into our turquoise glaze for a really lovely finish.