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.

Art projects based on children's books

 I just finished a parent and child class at the art gallery. I prepared several projects based on Children's books. The first project I would like to share is a project based on Eric Carle’s “The Grouchy Lady Bug”

We used ceramic clay to make pinch pots and flipped them over then added a small mound of clay for the heads. We poked two holes in the hole with a pencil in order to hot glue wire antennae into them later. We used white oil pastels to draw leaves onto white paper and then brushed green water color onto them.

When the bugs were finished being fired we painted them with acrylic paints in two steps body and head then dots when the under coat of red dried. We cut the leaves and trimmed them up and glued them onto foam core board with tacky glue. After hot gluing the antennae on  I used a caulking adhesive glue to attach the ceramic bugs to the foam core board.

Clay Goddess Manifestation vessals

These are the clay Goddess Manifestation Vessals I have been making. They are small and hang on the wall with the tummy pockets being a place to put what you would like to manifest or have in your life. I started making these in 1997 after an inspiring trip to England. I thought now in 2012 it was a good time to get back into them again. I have never stopped working with the image of the Great Goddess but the Faith in Art show was a great time to display some of this work. I even made a incense burner

This last photo is of me along with the current work on display at Stella Art studios. You may recognize the paintings from my "Tarot" Series that were recently on display at the Genesee Co-op Credit Union.To the left of me is the "Goddess Calendar" I made in 2007 from Mexican Pottery Clay.