5.25.2010

second grade texture tiles



The second grade artists spent some lovely spring mornings outside exploring textures. They used their naturalist and spatial intelligences to find natural objects that would make an interesting texture to print in the wet clay. They made two tiles each, one with an imprinted texture from a natural object and one built up texture inspired by nature. The clay pieces were kiln fired and then a special glazing technique was used to make the textures really stand out.

These are beautiful tokens of texture that will always remind us of our school garden.











7 comments:

zime said...

WOW this is really cool!!
(^v^)

jen at paintcutpaste.com said...

these are beautiful! i did a similar project with my 3yo daughter using sculpey, and again using model magic, and blogged about the sculpey one here on my blog, paintcutpaste.com. and this is the later blog using model magic to make necklace pendents in the same way.

Shannah said...

Thank you both!

Bethany said...

I love love the glazing on these. Could you please share the product/process. Thank you!

Shannah said...

Hello Bethany and thank you!
We used amaco glaze on a white clay body. They brushed on a coat or two of glaze and then used a sponge to lightly take off the surface while leaving the glaze in the texture. I have also used this method with watercolors, tempera, or acrylic paint with my younger students to similar effect and then put a "glue glaze" on top. Hope that helps, let me know if you have any more questions:)

Melanie said...

Hi, I'm doing a similar project with my 1st graders. I'm taking them to Central Park to collect Fall objects and then we will bring them back to class to press them into the clay and either make texture tiles or bowls from a mold...
I'm curious about your glazing technique. We have underglazes and stroke n' coat glazes to use. What is amaco glaze? Do you use regular paint on top of your clay sometimes? How does that all work? I'm a bit new to this genre.
Thanks
Melanie

Shannah said...

Hello Melanie,
I like to use gloss glazes but your glazes will also work for this kind of project. It would just have a matte finish instead of being glossy.

I've used acrylic (stains the clay a little more than tempera), tempera, watercolor, tissue paper collage, and even crayon on top of kiln fired clay- it all works and just depends on what kind of look you are going for. Hope that helps! Feel free to email me with any questions: sburton@newcityschool.org