A Whole Lotta Clay Going On

Another group of pix that I'm really tardy with are these clay Abstract Family Groupings. Always a popular assignment with my second year clay kids, these were made in the First Quarter and glazed in the Second Quarter.  It was used as a review for slab and surface decorative techniques. 

The top one with the fantastic surface texture was created by senior Tiffany Liu.

The students are required to embellish these pieces after they come out of the glaze fire with beads, buttons, yarns, raffia, twigs, etc. so that it becomes a mixed media work.

This next one above was made by senior Melissa Garcia and hers has a very bas-relief feel because of the great overlapped shapes.

The very sweet piece above was done by senior Alyssa Olea.  The kids also had to think about hanging devices.  I really like how Alyssa stitched hers together.

Senior Chareena Eleazar from my Ceramic II class recently finished glazing and embellishing a project from 1st quarter. It was a review assignment to refresh her slab building skills from 1st year clay. The assignment is called Abstract Family Group, and these two pieces were her solution to the design process. The figures could have all been hooked together or separated from one another. It's interesting to see how the kids interpret the design for this assignment. After glazing, the students are required to bring in added embellishments such as raffia, beads, buttons, twigs, etc. so piece becomes a mixed media study. I especially like how Chareena melted down nails into various spots in upper piece.

Abstact Family Group - Student Art

These beauties belong to my 2nd year clay students. The requirements were to abstract at least 3 figures using a slab building technique. Then to bring lots of surface decoration into each figure such as stamping, incising, piercing, etc. After bisque firing, to then stain clay with oxides for the glaze fire. Afterwards they had to embellish and mount the figures onto posterboard. This top piece belongs to senior Steven Elalobar. I really like how he mounted it on the diagonal.

What always impresses me are the creative solutions these kids come up with in the embellishing and mounting processes. I love how senior, Etka Doshi, wire wrapped glass shards to her mounting board in the piece above, and look how cool the nails look in senior Wayne Chen's work below. And be sure to check out those brown beads Wayne incorporated, those came off of my very ancient Camp Fire Girl costume from the 60's when we used to earn them by doing good deeds. I always tried to earn the most beads so I could have the most to work when I designed and sewed them onto my costumes for our ceremonies. Now I know you are wondering if I ever fibbed on those good deeds to get to those beads. What do you think? LOL

EXTRA CREDIT: On a piece of brown paper cut into the shape of a bead put your name and period on one side and on the other tell me what's the worst thing you've ever done to get something you wanted really bad. Will I tell on you? What do you think? LOL