I didn't blow the kiln up!!!!!

As some of you know, my friend Ted (artwithmre) and I have been talking about firing clay pieces with marbles or other glass pieces in them. He tried, and posted some of his results, and now it is my turn. I tried using a variety of glass pieces, from marbles, mosaic tiles, the glass "wafers" that are used in plant arrangements, millefiori glass pieces and even a variety of glass beads, including faceted beads, seed beads of a variety of sizes, bugle beads, and some square beads I had.

 I fired to cone 04 since Ted said he had some pieces where the glass popped out. Some pieces were glazed, and some were not. I was very excited to see how they turned out, so I came in over the weekend to open the kiln, and was surprised to find that every piece survived. Here are some of the results...

Before...

 

After...

      

1st grade monster pinch pots

The first grade curriculum for this 9 weeks calls for the students to make a pinch pot. I decided that we would take the pinch pots and turn them into monsters. I gave each student a ball of clay, and taught them how to create their pinch pots, by sticking their thumb into the ball of clay, and then "quacking" (pinching) their clay, thereby forming a pinch pot. Next, we turned them sideways, and added eyes, teeth, tongues, hair, horns and other assorted parts to create our monsters. After firing, the students painted their monsters. I am in the process of putting them in the display case now. Here are a few of them I thought you might enjoy.