Warm and Cool Landscape/Cityscape

I thought of an idea for a lesson plan involving the use of warm and cool color schemes using underglazes.  I figured the students could choose between a landscape or cityscape and produce a silhouette type effect on their pots.  The blues in the cityscape turned out a bit darker than I planned but you still can see it somewhat in the photo.  Below are my samples:

Baltimore Cityscape

African Landscape

What makes underglaze run?

Recently I made the pot shown below, painting the design on with underglazes.  After I painted it, I fired it to make sure the design did not smear when I applied the glaze.  Needless to say, the underglaze still smeared (Mostly the black).  Why?  I investigated and found this answer on a ceramics message board:

It doesn't really matter how high you fire your glaze kiln but 

you have to fix the underglazes at a HOTTER temperature to keep them from 

moving under the glaze. So if you bisc to 04 then your glaze firing is 

supposed to be at a lower temperature. That's if you want your 

underglazes to stay put. 

Blue & Purple

Recently I rearranged a lot of the pottery I have all over my house.  I decided to do a purple and blue display in my kitchen.  What do you think?  I love the cool colors.  They seemed to turn out darker in this picture than in real life :(

More student work from the Art House

Here are a few more examples of some recent work by some of my students at the Casselberry Art House.  They were made using a artificial plastic fern, and brown underglaze that was wiped off and used like a stain.  Although it would seem to be more natural to use real ferns, I like how the fake ones make a nice, crisp, deep imprint into the clay.

Card Making Party

Recently a friend of mine had a card making party.  Of course, I had made a few cards before, but have not been really into the whole "stamping" craze.  I must say that I really enjoyed making these and will probably be making more in the future!

Pottery App for Iphone & Ipad

I found the coolest little app for my Iphone where you can throw your own pots on the wheel, fire them, and then decorate them.  Its an awesome little game!  To find out more use the link below to take you to Idreams website.

Pottery App

http://www.idreams.pl/Pottery/

Latest Endeavor..

Lately I have been working on projects that would be good examples for secondary art lesson plans.  I have been exploring the idea of adding landscapes to pottery.  I finished my first piece that is an example of an African landscape using a warm color scheme (below).  Now I am working on a night time city scape piece that I will upload a photo of when I am finished.  I think that these both will be good ways to have students explore different countries and cities, while honing their ceramic skills!

There is also a continued design on the back with more trees and a giraffe.