Ceramic Vessels

Julie Elkin's Ceramic Vessel

First image is from behance.net

This lesson was implemented when I was a student teacher at Godwin High School in the fall of 2008. This was probably the third ceramic lesson idea that I came up with that  my cooperative teacher liked. And I was soo thrilled with the results!!  Julie Elkins is a ceramic artist in Richmond, Virginia and I followed her career since college (the first time around). She creates these amazing ceramic vessels that are narrative and are extremely detailed. I remember going to one of her one-woman show exhibits and seeing the teapot series and wishing I had money to buy one of her one-of-kind pieces. I showed the students a power point of her work and they were totally inspired by the work and that she is a local artist.

Art 3 students had free rein of what kind of scene they wanted to capture in their ceramic vessels. The requirements were that it had to meet a certain height, be able to hold a cup of water (it’s a ceramic vessel) and that it had to have a narrative scene.

Trend Board

Image Transferred

Painted color swatches

Tints & Shades of Blue

Trend Board

Finished Board

In the hallway was another large empty bulletin board that was crying to be decorated. Most of the student work were either hanged in the ceiling or taped on the walls. What I had to display were the image transfer work that the students did in the art enrichment class after school and the color swatches (tints and shades of a color) they had done in class. The color swatches were practice pieces before the big canvas project. I stapled them randomly on the board (with my brand new sparkling industrial stapler) along with fabric remnants. This looks like an inspiration board for a design corporate company!

Festival of Lights

Lantern continued

David drawing

Tyler drawing a dragon

Gluing templates together

the sides of the lantern are completed

Finishing touches

First image is from simple-chinese.com.