Today the kids came back to see how much their Monday plates had dried. Now they need to make the rest of their pieces AND glaze everything by the end of the day. Starting off with a discussion of how INCREDIBLY FRAGILE their plates are at this stage. And that if something breaks off now that they’re dry there is NO WAY to put it back together. I like to put a tiny bit of fear in them so they will work with a little extra care & patience. I tell them that if something breaks off at this point, it’s either gone for good or they need to make a replacement piece!!!

We only had one overnight casualty. One of the plates dried too fast and cracked right through the center. And then when I moved it to the table, the tail popped right off into my hand. Not a good sign. So I quickly made the “base” of another fish plate for her, and she did the detailing when she got in. Problem solved. Back up to speed. And that brass dragonscale tool that sits in my toolbox came in really handy to make some fish scales!!!

After they finished building the last of their pieces, they all began painting them with our Teacher’s Choice brand glazes. They’re a simple collection of colored glazes that work really well on these kids projects. It’s so much fun to see their monochromatic plates & cups come to life in color… knowing that they’ll get even better & more vibrant after they’re fired.

And “somehow”… I don’t know how, but “SOMEHOW”… the kids start a discussion and decide “all by themselves” that we should have a Chocolate Chip Cookie Bake-Off Contest tomorrow. Brilliant idea. On their part. And who am I to say no?!! I would never want to dash their dream & desires especially when there will be a lot of cookies in it for ME!!! So glad they thought of this idea all by themselves… with just a smidge of coaxing by me… a smidge… maybe a tiny bit… allegedly.

So if there’s going to be a contest… of course we need a BEST COOKIE TROPHY!!!
So I threw this little ditty together for the winner!

This week at Summer Camp we’re doing “Fire, Forge & Feast.”
It’s an ambitious camp where we have the kids make an entire placesetting on just five days! The first two days we work with clay, then two days in the Metals Department, then on Friday we pull it all together and have a huge FEAST for lunch. A full set with a consistent theme throughout.

So I started off this week with introductions & rules, as usual, and then we went into some basic handbuilding skills. As many of them professed to have good clay experience, I had a couple of them do the demo as I explained how & why they were doing each step.

And then the kids set off to start their own plates!!! Keeping their themes in mind. And determining how they were going to best represent their themes on a dinner plate, salad plate, bowl, platter, mug and cutlery handles.

By the end of the day, we had a table FULL of wonderful pieces. So much creativity. So much energy. So much fun to be the teacher who gets the kids to do all of this!!!

Best thank you gift from a Summer Camp kid ever! You know how I like my tie-dye!!
So it was a wonderful gift from one of my Chess Campers… Thank You Eli.

Chess Camp has just FLOWN by this week. The kids were so much fun this time around. A little bit younger than previous years… so it took me a little time acclimate. Their skill sets & attention-to-detail may not have been quite up to where their enthusiasm & energy wanted them to be. But it’s that “crude”  and adorable rawness to them that make each set so adorable!!!

We spent most of the day painting all of the pieces with colored underglazes. They will be glazed with clear glaze over the weekend by the studio monitors. A couple kids had a few last pieces to make… and a few others also found that they needed to make some “replacement” pieces as their originals broke during the painting process. It was a tough lesson to learn that scoring & slipping DOES indeed matter… and if you don’t to it well, your chess character’s head might just fall off!!!

So here are some of the chess sets at the end of the day. Painted and lined up… double-checking that they have all of the pieces they need to make a full set. Each one cuter than the next. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of every set… but here’s a few of them…

So now they’re all done. The campers have had a VERY productive five days. So much fun playing with these talented kids. while they created these little “masterpieces.” Over the weekend, they will all get glazed with clear glaze and go into an electric kiln. The kids will need to come back in a few days to pick up their chess sets.

The goal for today was to “finish” building all of their chess pieces so that we can paint them with underglaze tomorrow. Most of the kids made it. A couple of them need to finish a couple more tomorrow morning. Deadline’s approaching… so tomorrow’s going to be a BUSY day!!!

It’s been a productive week so far at Summer Camp. My kids are each busy building a full chess set out of terra cotta clay. They’ve each developed their own themes and are building it piece by piece. But camp is not just clay… it’s also about cleaning and every other part of the process!

And for my camps, there are three simple rules…

Summer Camp Rule #1 : “Have fun.”
And it definitely looks like they are. You can see it on their faces, and in their work!

Summer Camp Rule #2 : “Your fun is not more important than anyone else’s fun.”
So there’s no teasing, nicknaming, bullying, acting up or anything else.

Score… slip… repeat.
Hopefully they’ve all learned some good handbuilding skills.
They’ll find out soon enough what happens as they dry if they have NOT scored & slipped!!!

They also needed to start painting their chess boards. Each chess board is 24″x 24″… which means each piece sits on a checkered section that is 3″ square.

Like I said… camp is not just about MAKING things, but also the other steps of the process. A tough lesson is reclaiming their dried clay. I keep telling them to watch out so their clay doesn’t dry too fast. To keep it covered with plastic and spray it once and awhile with water.  However, some of them don’t hear that warning… and we end up with some dry chunks of clay. So they then get to “volunteer” to pulverize the dry clay so we can reclaim it into useful slip. A little hard work might reinforce the lesson of “preserving” their wet usable clay.

At the end of the day, we clean up our class room. They kids are great about scraping & scrubbing the tables, sweeping the floor, cleaning all of their tools and making the room cleaner than it was when they came in for the morning.

Throughout the day, I also get to “enforce” my favorite of the rules…
Summer Camp Rule #3 : “Whatever mess you make, YOU will be cleaning up.”
So when there’s a mess on the floor by the sinks, the kids “volunteer” to be the ones to clean it up. They know the rules… and it’s all part of the process!

Today my Summer Camps kicked it in gear and finished their sculptures. We worked on painting final details and adding metallic accents. A Hershey’s Kiss just isn’t a Kiss without an aluminum foil wrapper, right?!

And here they are… our finished sculptures ready for their Gallery showing!!! I wish…

Baseball Hat & Baseball Bat – by Samara

Frozen Yogurt Cup – by Cecilia

Rainbow Coca-Cola Can – by Stella

Hershey’s Kiss – by Greta

Converse Hightop Shoe & Basketball – by Hannah

Bowl of Cheerios – by Dierdre

Starburst Fruit Chews – by Isabel

No. 2 Pencil – by Nicole

Hershey’s Chocolate Bar – by Rebecca

Starbuck’s Iced Coffee – by Isabella

Traditional Parking Meter – by Isaac

Dr. Who Dalek – by Sophie… or at least that’s what she “told me” it was?!!!

Sophie also made this Dr. Who Tardis… at least I recognized THIS one.

Hershey’s Kiss – by Natalie... and I especially LOVE the mis-spelling!

Movie Popcorn – by Audrey

Green Gummi Bear – by Ainslie

Converse Hightop – by Emma

And there it is… the end of our “Pop Art Sculptures” Summer Camp…
as well as the end of my “Tour of Duty” as this was my last Camp for the Summer!

Today my Summer Camp kids started painting their “Pop Art Sculptures”… in addition to memorizing their 23 Pop Artists.  The white plaster will be covered with acrylic paints as the campers bring their sculptures to life with acrylic colors.

Okay, so some of the kids had more fun painting their hands than their sculptures!!!

By the end of the day, my Summer Campers had pretty much finished up their “Pop Art Sculpture” construction. A lot of work & a lot of plaster gauze. They’re now drying overnight… for tomorrow we start painting.

Yesterday we worked to make sense out of those piles of cardboard & newspaper. My Summer Campers worked hard to pull their designs together and make their sculptures a reality. Yesterday we worked with the cardboard as armature, newspaper as filler and masking tape to hold everything together… a LOT of masking tape!!!

A lot of projects. A lot of sculpture. A lot of kids… in NOT a lot of space!!!

Today we switched to plaster gauze to cover the “armature” and give it a “skin.” Small sheets of plaster gauze are dunked in water, then placed on their pieces and rubbed into place. As the plaster dissolves, it fills the holes in the gauze. Sheet after sheet. Rubbing & smoothing all the way to cover their sculptures.

So much fun for the kids to see their sculptures come together. Their sculptures are starting to “look like something” and they’re all starting to see their visions come together.

Tomorrow we start painting the details…
as the plaster gauze will have dried & solidified overnight.