Holiday Season is Here!

Santas Making His List!

Well now that Thanksgiving is over, the rush of the holiday season has begun! Only a few weeks of school is left until Christmas Holiday begins! Which means only 25 days until Christmas! I've only purchased a few Christmas gifts so far. I really wish I were one of those organized people who finishes all of their shopping long before the crowds at the malls and stores. In the past few years I have begun to dread shopping because of all of the crowds, lines, and not knowing what to buy for my loved ones. So some of my shopping will be done online this year for that reason. Tomorrow is supposedly the beginning of cyber shopping and it even has its own name... "Cyber Monday". Well I don't know if that is really the case, because I think many people shop online all year round these days. But just in case anyone wishes to buy from my Etsy shop...I am running a special for $50 purchases this week. Any $50 or more purchased from my Etsy shop will receive Free Shipping to anywhere in the US Special this week only! So stop by my shop to browse. The special ends Friday December 5th.

Happy shopping to all!
Beth

Fish Themed Clay Tiles

As I promised a couple of weeks ago, I am posting the results of some of the clay tiles that I made at school this year. My students began a unit learning how to use clay. As an introductory project to the clay (most students have never worked with clay), I assigned them to create a textured tile design. I showed them a couple of my examples from last year(here and here), and explained how they could add a variety of textures by carving out clay and adding clay pieces to raise the surface. They had to roll the clay out into slabs, cut them out into a square shape, cut out their design pieces, then start putting them together. So after they got settled and began working on their pieces, I started a couple of new ones so they can watch the progress and hopefully get some ideas that they can apply to their own clay pieces. Here are two pictures showing my results. The first is the two fish tiles after the bisque firing. I have also added black glaze to emphasize the carved lines and corners and edges. After removing the black from the raised surfaces, I added the rest of the glaze colors. The tiles were fired in the kiln one more time to get the final shiney results you see in the 2nd photo.

Fish Tiles after bisque firing

Fish Tiles after Glaze Firing

Beth S. Macre © 2008