Vernam on mon 7 apr 97
Hello-
I am seeking information and advice on planning, coordinating, and
executing an elementary school tile installation. This will be a
cooperative effort with all 200 kids and will start in a couple weeks.
Though I am experienced in high-fire tile work, I am less so with
low-fire and the best options for sucess. I have taught clay to kids
before but have never undertaken such a huge collaborative project.
I am also a mom at the school and half my time is being donated.
The design in progress is a clay "quilt". Any info, advice would be
extremely appreciated.
Alanna Vernam
Patsy Catsos on mon 7 apr 97
Hi:
My elementary school students have had a lot of success with the following
materials:
*pre-bisqued, unglazed white tiles--these don't warp at all and can be fired
in a tile setter/stacker--available from most ceramics suppliers
*plan can be drawn on the tile with a regular graphite pencil. If the lines
are drawn "lightly" they won't show after firing. Heavy lines will show.
*Amaco underglazes--velvets are cheaper than standard
*underglaze pencils for outlining--these will probably smear if glaze is
brushed on over them. You could fire the tiles before brushing on glaze or
spray on the glaze
*Amaco F-10 transparent glaze
*Fire to cone 05
Hope these suggestions are helpful.
Patsy
LINDA BLOSSOM on mon 7 apr 97
Dear Alanna,
You need to supply more details. Where is the installation going to be?
Inside? Outside? What is the substrate?
Linda Blossom
2366 Slaterville Rd.
Ithaca, NY 14850
607-539-7912
blossom@lightlink.com
http://www.artscape.com
The Posedel's on tue 8 apr 97
Hey Alanna,
Admire your courage in such an undertaking. Dave and I took on such a
project when our kids were in grade school with @ 450 kids. The rewards
are still felt., even though our kids are now in high school. We still get
feed back from the community with appreciation.
Our project was a tile motif of the tree of learning designed by our
stained glass partners at our retail co-operative. We used a tesselation
pattern for the "kids" tiles so each one was shaped the same and
interlocking. Each child "designed" their own tile by using a pin tool,
pencils, and found objects of meaning. Their tiles were @ a 2-3 in square.
Each child put his/her name on the tile using metal leather stamps.
We did each classroom at a time and took @ 3 weeks to hit all the rooms.
(big school!) We high-fired all the kids' tiles plus the rest of the
design which included larger tiles done by the staff.
Luckily one of our stained glass partners was also knowledgable in tile
setting so he prepared the surface by peeling up the tile and leveled the
cement base. This was laid in the entrance of the school. We laid the
floor during spring break to give it a chance to set before all those
little feet started poncing on it.
We finished and sealed the floor with a product called Horntraz which we
bought at our local masonry/builing supply store. This not only sealed the
floor, but it brought out a beautiful rich shine. The floor was
approximately 12 ft. by 20 ft. and turned out beautiful. We had a blast
but don't think we would take this on again. Once is enough, for sure!!!
Good luck....we need more people to get this involved in their kids and
their kids schools........It takes a village you know. :} Cheri
At 12:19 AM 4/7/97 EDT, you wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>Hello-
> I am seeking information and advice on planning, coordinating, and
>executing an elementary school tile installation. This will be a
>cooperative effort with all 200 kids and will start in a couple weeks.
> Though I am experienced in high-fire tile work, I am less so with
>low-fire and the best options for sucess. I have taught clay to kids
>before but have never undertaken such a huge collaborative project.
> I am also a mom at the school and half my time is being donated.
>The design in progress is a clay "quilt". Any info, advice would be
>extremely appreciated.
>
>Alanna Vernam
>
>
Cheri Posedel
mudpie@cyberhighway.net
Dave conine on wed 9 apr 97
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>Hello-
> I am seeking information and advice on planning, coordinating, and
>executing an elementary school tile installation. This will be a
>cooperative effort with all 200 kids and will start in a couple weeks.
> Though I am experienced in high-fire tile work, I am less so with
>low-fire and the best options for sucess. I have taught clay to kids
>before but have never undertaken such a huge collaborative project.
> I am also a mom at the school and half my time is being donated.
>The design in progress is a clay "quilt". Any info, advice would be
>extremely appreciated.
>
>Alanna Vernam
It was just about a year ago now that I was finishing the installation of a
9' x13' tile wall at the secondary school where I teach. The project is
single-fired multi-colored terra sig wall depicting a metphorical journey
through life and learning.All of the decoration is impressed. The students
did 5 panels.Hands, feet, tosols, letters/numbers, and tire tracks. The
student body was set loose on 500lb. of rolled out slabs in 5 stations and
the decoration was done in two hours. I said Stop! Don't overdo it! It was
cut up and left to dry over Christmas break. The 5 sig colors were applied
gently and it was fired and installed. The worst part of the project was
the grouting. Oh well. Its done and it looks terrific. The student pride is
the greatest benefit to one of these projects. I'd do it again. Suzanne
(Cone 9) Conine
Cheryl L Litman on wed 9 apr 97
I am almost done with a clay project for a school of 220 KG-2 students.
We made fish and coral for a Caribbean reef diorama.
During the first class with each group we discussed the project, talked
about the sea and drew pictures. The second class I gave a demo using a
slab, gave them slabs and had them make the fish, the third class we
painted the fish with acrylics ( I would have liked to glaze but it would
have been too time consuming plus another firing).
The main piece of advice is to get 1-2 parent volunteers per class
involved. I just had the parents show up for the class, listen to me do
the demo and then walk around helping the kids. Another artist, who did
a grade 3-5 project held a special warmup/demo for the parent volunteers
the week before so the parents could try the project firsthand. I should
have done that, she got good feedback on how to modify what she was doing
to make it easier plus the parents felt more comfortable helping the kids
later.
I have a few parent volunteers this week coming in to help me assemble
the diorama. I felt that having the kids help with the assembly would be
too chaotic since they are so young.
The only other thing we did that made life easier was to have each kid
put their piece in the drying area on top of a piece of paper that we had
written their name on. The next day, after the clay had dried a bit, I
inscribed the names and a code for which class they belonged with. In my
own private classes of 8 kids it's hard enough trying to read the names
they scrawl in wet clay. This way caused more work for me but it was
easy to get the pieces divided up by class after the firing and then
distributed back to the right kid for painting.
Good luck. It was fun but much much much ... more work than I had
initially planned on. I also discovered that I hate 40 minute art
periods. My classes are generally 1.5 hours.
| |
|
