Beginning ceramic students learned all about rolling out slabs when making their clay boxes.  So, I thought I would use the slab to let them experiment carving.  They all rolled out and cut 6″X6″ tiles.  From there they were given the “rules”.  They needed to have a minimum of 4 levels.  How that was achieved was up to them.  They were shown this Pinterest board for some examples.  They had to have a frame…again, they decided what constituted a frame.  And, one element had to break said frame.

And go.  As usual, I have a few kids that can just jump in and go for it…and get great results.  Others carefully planned and revised their designs.  I had one student wind up at our alternative center and had to work on her tile without help from me or others…she did a fabulous job.

Once they were finished, I had decided this was a great project to show them a non-glaze surface technique.  I had seen pieces done on my Facebook Art Teachers group and thought the oil pastel tempera resist would be perfect for them.  First they color the tiles with oil pastels.  I tell them to color darkly, but not to color fully.  Where ever there were holidays, the tempera would soak into the ceramic. Next they covered the entire piece with tempera.  On my example I had watered it down.  I didn’t have them do that, and they turned out just fine.  After that they held the tiles under a running stream from the faucet.  I reminded them just to let the water wash over it and not to scrub.  The water would rinse away all the tempera where they had colored with the oil pastels.  Many were nervous and seemed as if they didn’t believe me.  I love their faces when they finally saw the amazing result.  As a last step, I had them spray with a spray gloss to seal the piece.

They were super happy with their tiles.  I don’t think they ever would have though to do anything like this.  A few of them are in painting and drawing with the other art teacher and the connected what we did with the resist to a similar project they did on paper with tempera and ink.  Love when they can do that.