The Mueller Primary Art Room has been abuzz with creative excitement this term, as our creative Year Four students excitedly ventured into the art form of pottery for the first time. They used real leaves and textures to create ceramic items suitable for later use as a kitchen spoon rest, bathroom soap dish, jewellery receptacle or possibly even a tealight-candle base, from clay slabs rolled out, cut and textured by themselves, whilst also learning how to work with and correctly join the clay.
Each class was taken down to the kiln room, to see where the clay is fired at super-high temperatures and transforms from brittle dry clay into hard ceramic, through the process of vitrification that takes place during the firing process – this is when the clay is heated up so much that the little clay particles ever so slightly melt and join together as one piece. When the fired pottery cools down it is then called ‘ceramic’ and is no longer ‘clay’. The students were fascinated to learn that this is a bit like when hot runny lava spews out of a volcano and turns into a different kind of hard rock when it cools down.
This has been such a fun art project. The students worked so enthusiastically and intently, making and decorating their pieces. Once their pieces were bisque fired, the students decorated them with brush-on glazes and couldn’t wait to get them back after the final glaze firing in the school kiln.
As these delightful pieces of student art prove, our Year Fours are quite a creative bunch…and what a delight to be able teach them!
Miss Liat Ham
Mueller Art Specialist
