Sunday, April 15, 2012

Clay Tile Mural, Part 1

I have been incredibly busy lately. This year, I have decided to create a clay tile mural with my fifth graders. I have never done something like this, and it is quite an undertaking. I have about 130 fifth graders and each one is creating one tile out of clay. The first step was to have my students create their tiles. This mural will be in the style of Keith Haring, so each student created a tile of a person in motion.After creating the tile, I had my students glaze them. Amazingly, this was the hardest part for my students. They struggled to paint the sides and small spaces neatly. If I do this project again someday, I may have them do an underglaze instead. These have not been fired in the kiln yet. I can't wait to see what they look like finished. Eventually, these tiles will be permanently installed on the wall in our cafeteria. This is my first time attempting a project like this. It would have been impossible for me to do without the help of Deep Space Sparkle. She has a wonderful Booklet that you can purchase which explains the entire process of creating a mural like this.

5 comments:

  1. Nice job. I wrote a grant to create a clay mural next year.

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  2. Wow, this is a fabulous project!! Thanks for sharing the link too!

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  3. I can't wait to see the final mural up and installed! I've always wanted to do something like this and you've inspired me!

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  4. I'm dreaming up a tile mural for my students to complete next year. Our P.T.O. group wants to help build morale at our school. I had an idea to put an interactive tree at the front entrance of our elementary school. One teacher wanted it to be painted, another wanted it to be made out of paper, etc. I think it would be best to have the students create a tile mural. Basically we'll have a basket of leaves for the students, teachers, parents, etc. to write thankful messages on leaves to someone making a difference in our school. These will be hung bi-weekly on the tree for everyone to see/read. I just need to get a good grasp on how I'm going to make this tile mural. Yikes! I have about 200 students. Do you have any advice for me?

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