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Lesson Plans


Re: ceramics

[ Thread ][ Subject ][ Author ][ Date ]
Numo Jaeger & Michael Miller (jaegmil)
Sun, 29 Aug 1999 21:19:35 +0000

Porcelain tends to be a cranky material. It doesn't like to have varying
thickness which seems to be a common problem with handbuilt sculptural
forms with kids.
It sure is a beautiful clay body though. (There is nothing like the
smoothness and the way high fire glazes look on pieces done in porcelain in
a reduction firing.) For children and beginning students I think a white
stoneware with grog or sand is easier material to use for both throwing and
making handbuild sculptures.

I project which worked successfully with me and might be interesting for
older children is to make "a porcelain miniature" or special "porcelain
treasure". Try adding some sand or molochite into the porcelain. That
material will open up the clay body and make it stand up a little bit better.

As for recycling porcelain- it is a pain to recycle because it gets hard
and lumpy. You really need to turn into a complete slurry to recycle it
effectively.

Numo

Numo Jaeger
Studio One Art Center
Oakland Ca.

At 09:03 PM 8/29/99 EDT, LMiller435 wrote:
>Yes, about porcelain. I, at one time, made very small environments with my
>5th grades. I had 100 pounds of free porcelain. Kept small and delicate, I
>mean animals were no more than 3/4 inch high, the elasticity of the
porcelain
>allowed the delicate size of things.
>
>Leslie in MA
>
>