Ceramic Fairy Houses Lesson (Part One-Slab Construction)
- Stone Entry
- Wooden Window
- Texture Door & outer covering
- Leaf Roof Lid
- Abigail-Fox Mushroom house
- Abigail-Fox Mushroom house
- Robing-Rose Flower House
- Adelyne- Cut each scallop individually for roof
- Adelyne- Wood grain texture
- Jaida- Mushroom House with Bird & Nest
Ceramic Fairy Houses Lesson (Part One-Slab Construction)
Objectives:
- Students will create an original clay house demonstrating good craftsmanship using slab and hand-building techniques.
- Students will draw at least two preparatory sketches of ideas for their house.
- Students will be able to define the given clay vocabulary.
- Students will learn slab construction and hand building techniques.
Supplies: Small Cylinder to roll slab onto (we used our water cups), ceramic sculpting supplies-Sculpt Pro 11 Piece Pottery and Sculpting Art Tool Set, Masonite panels covered in canvas & secured
Preparation:Â Wedge the clay into grapefruit-size balls, one per child plus a few extra.
Delivery:
- Two-dimensional: a SHAPE that can be measured in two ways: by height and width
- Three-dimensional: a FORM that can be measured three ways: height, width, and depth
- Free Standing Sculpture: a type of sculpture that is surrounded by space on all sides
- Additive Sculpture: sculpture made by adding materials onto to the form.
Ceramic Techniques:
- Hand-building: building pots using the only the hands and hand-held clay tools
- Slab: clay is rolled into thin sheets or slabs and then formed into shapes or forms.
- Pinch: shaping clay by inserting the thumb of one hand into the clay and lightly pinching/ pressing with the thumb on the inside and fingers on the outside while slowly turning the clay to enlarge the center opening of the clay.
- Coil: creating ceramic forms by rolling out coils of clay and joining them together by the slip & score method.
Stages of Dryness
- Wet
- Leather hard
- Greenware or Bone dry
- Bisquesware (first firing)
- GlazeWare (second firing with glaze)
The Ten Golden Rules of Ceramics Submitted by Joe Cox
This is how we made the cylinder house:
- Â Apply Texture to slab before cutting out templates (we forgot to do it first & it was hard to get nice texture afterwards)
- Â Scratch and slip:Â (DEMO) To attach two pieces of clay, scratch the surfaces to be joined several times with a needle tool and apply a small amount of slip or water on both sides. Press the surfaces together. Be sure not to over-wet the clay, which will cause it to become too soft and slimy. This is important to do because as slabs dry they tend to pull apart and pieces could pop apart or off. To make an even stronger bond, roll a very thin coil of clay and push it inside the joints where the walls meet.
- Demo Subtractive and Additive methods. Demonstrate how to cut windows & doors
- When completely finished, scratch your name into the piece & set on a bat labeled with your name & today’s date in Kiln room to dry. Dry 5-10 days
Next is Part Two-GLAZING!
If you choose to use this lesson or to repost it, please link it back to my blog. Create Art with ME
Additional Ceramic Lessons:
Bird Bath Miniature with Glass Bead
Ceramic Butterfly Bowls Part 1 & Part 2 (Glazed)
Role-A-Beast Animal Ceramic Lesson
Funny Face Mugs Part 1-slab construction & Part 2– Jug History & Glazing
5 Comments
I was looking for a new slab project for my 3rd graders. I love these! In the past I have build Adobe houses with them. I love the lesson but I am finding they are struggling with the process lately. Maybe we will make some little cylinder fairey houses this year. At what point did you remove the form and did you keep them covered to dry slowly?
Kim @ Art on my Hands
Great idea creating adobe houses! We found that it was best to remove the form right after we had cut out the doors and windows. Otherwise the clay & paper will stick to the cup (this was NOT good!). We keep them covered until we were almost finished because the form is so short, we did not have many problems with forms collapsing. The main issue was having the bottom form hard enough to support building the roof on top. Have fun creating!!
Thanks so much for the lessons. I’m currently working with air dry clay. However, I find that it cracks after drying and this issue can be extremely frustrating. I would appreciate any advice you can give me that would help in controlling my clay projects from cracking.
Sincerely,
Miss Mary
Unfortunately that has been my experience with air dry clay as well. In fact I stopped using it all together, expect for very small projects like pendants. I fervently asked our administrators for a kiln so we could do ceramics & they eventually purchased one for us. It was a game changer! Wish I could provide better answers, but air dry clay has just never worked for my students. -Michelle
I love this project and would like to do it with my daughter, except I am missing instructions in making the roof. Do you have anywhere that would be helpful for that?
Thanks in advance