CLAY WORKSHOP
A couple of weeks ago, we were lucky enough to have a clay workshop delivered to us by an art teacher from Goldington Academy.
Over the course of the afternoon, we learnt different techniques: drawing, printing and attaching into/onto clay. We each had a (huge!) piece of clay, where we practised the different techniques, once they had been demonstrated.
For drawing, we were given inspiration, which consisted mainly of a nature and under-water theme, and we used a pencil to draw into the clay. Pencils tend to be the best tool to use for drawing into clay, because they can be easily manipulated and make a nice, neat line. We were able to use other tools too, but we had to make sure we picked up the little clay ‘bits’ that gathered as we engraved, so they didn’t leave bumpy pieces on our final pieces.
We then looked at printing. We used a variety of objects to print: leaves, shells and stamps. The leaves came out really lightly, creating beautiful, delicate patterns. Once these are fired in the kiln, they will stand out a lot more! Different shells created different patterns – it was great to experiment with many different ones, whilst creating our masterpieces.
We also played around with attaching clay, using slip and a criss-cross hatching technique, to our blocks. Again, we took inspiration from nature, attaching petals and shell-like shapes. We had to make sure we didn’t attach bits of clay that were too big as large pieces attached could potentially explode in the kiln!
Our pieces then got taken away to be fired in the kiln. We cannot wait to see the end results, and feel so lucky to have experienced such a creative afternoon!
Have a look HERE for some photos from our sessions