Ceramic Bowls Using Nature

Each year I am happy to create art projects with kids at the Waverly School in Pasadena around the holidays. For a school fundraiser they have a holiday market where the school community makes and or donates objects to sell. I really try to create a project for the children that will really highlight their own creative thinking, while teaching them a particular technique. This year we made these delicate ceramic bowls with the 5th and 6th graders.

We used low-fire white clay, paper bowls, rolling pins, pieces of plastic and herbs ( sage, rosemary and juniper). 

We used the paper bowls as a mold in order to have all the bowls be a bit uniformed but also have the artistic hand of each student. The small piece of plastic is so that the clay releases easily from the paper bowl.

After forming the bowl the children chose the herb they liked to use to create a pattern in the clay on the inside of the bowls. Then removing the herbs to leave an impression.

Afte firing them in the kiln the bowls are ready for the kids to glaze.

I gave them the choice of a few different blue glazes and a few different green glazes for the bowls so that people could purchase a few as a set.
The kids painted on the glaze making sure they got into all the crevices of the herbal impressions. They then wiped off the glaze which was then left in the crevices. The last step before the kiln was to brush on a clear glaze over the entire bowl so that it could be used with food.

The result are these gorgeous bowls that even though they are all different from each other, look fantastic together.