More Clay

Here are some more pics of our Clay Day activities. The pieces have been fired and I realized that I would have preferred to use red or terracotta colored clay. I dug out a bag at home and I'm re-wetting the clay to play with it next week.I was looking through a recent issue of House Beautiful magazine. There was a picture of a fireplace with a chimney surround. It was clay tiles with plants pressed into the clay. A wash of black glaze was used in the impressions. That photo was the inspiration to use the plants from our garden. I don't like the buff colored clay of these tiles so I'll have to think of a different way to glaze these.Here's the Chicklet working on some beads. We'd just gone to See Alice In Wonderland so that provided some inspiration.Not sure how we'll use the beads but I haven't tried glazing clay beads so these will be our first.
We made some clay balls and used found objects to press patterns into these. I usually teach this technique at school and we place little nuggets in these making them into rattles. This time, I plan to place them on poles with beads and disks in between to create sculptures for the garden. Once again, this is the first time I'll be painting these and firing them with glaze.

Studio time has come to a standstill in the last few weeks. A lot of energy has gone into planting, weeding and digging. the house that burned a few months ago is under construction. They won't be keeping any of the current landscaping so one of my neighbors is busy digging up all the plants and transferring them. I've been digging up river rocks to create some inlaid designs in the front of the blue wall. I hope to dig up the last of the rocks this weekend and start to develop the design.

Marissa