Glass and Glaze

 Have you ever melted glass in your kiln. Fabulous idea that I know most art teachers do, especially my fellow art teachers in my county. I tried it this year for the first time and the results are amazing. The student's were amazed and thought these looked beautiful. Especially these second grade slab bowls. By far one of the best projects I've done all  year. I purchased the glass flat beads, large and small from the dollar store. I had to visit there a lot because we kept running out.

 These are in display in the case outside of my art room along with lots of other stuff. As you can see some glass did not make it all the way across some of the bottoms. Which is okay. Each piece I thought was unique.

 Side ways view from bowl at top. It's hard to see but the sides were stamped before these were put on the mold.

 I really like the free form of this pottery. I encourage the students to lay the slab (after they rolled it out) on the mold and to NOT cut it in a circle.

 These are ready to be fired in the kiln. You can see they each picked out three colors of glass. Just enought to melt all the way across,on most.

 Bone dry bisque and ready to be fired in the kiln.

 Great pic of stamped sides and bottom. These slabs were laid on a styrofoam bowl, as a mold. We used slab sticks, rollers to get the correct thickness of clay. Then they were stamped with various stamps I made last year. Then they were carefully picked up and laid on mold. They were to gently push down slab to form it slightly around mold (bowl), but not to much. Names were put on these last with needle tool.

 Fourth Graders even picked one piece of small glass and put inside their face pottery for a pop of color. I like to do this lesson with clear glaze.It shows the details in the clay better. These student's could choose clear if they wanted, if they didn't want the color inside.

 Glazing with three coats, time for a glass bead!!