Ceramic jack o lantern

This is a simple fairly simple clay project that you could probably do with older elementary students say in 4th or 5th grade. I made it is part of a hand building clay class I am taking. This was made with two pinch pots one stacked on top of the other. A coil was rolled and put over the seam then smoothed out. I made the lines on the pumpkin with a oval shaped chopstick but the rounded edge of a Popsicle stick would probably do. After the bisque firing I just used a orange acrylic paint on it and let parts of the stoneware color of the clay show through on the lines and the stem.A hole was cut in the bottom and on Halloween I am going to out a battery powered tea light in it. You could also vary this to be a pumpkin and skip the Halloween holiday edge then it could be a table topper for thanksgiving or other fall occasions as well.Just be sure if making the pumpkin variation that you cut a hole in the top or bottom to let the air out before firing.

I just love fall! I get so much inspiration from this season. The sights, the sounds the colors. I love picking pumpkins and painting/ carving them. I love hayrides, long walks to see the changing leaves and warm apple cider. So I have been working on a series of different fall themed drawings with students. For my Saturday classes for 7-10 year olds we have been creating fall scenes using markers. We talked about how to get different values out of the marker color be varying the pressure you apply on the marker. We also have a small how to draw a pumpkin tutorial and a discussion on horizon line and foreground, background and middle ground. We discussed how items in the front are larger then items in the back.

I created another variation of a marker drawing. The one below was draw with water based markers then a used a brush and brushed water back into it for a more water color effect.