ALL ART CLASSES; Get to know your 4FOURS!

Tues Jan 8- Ceramics Terms

Expect a quiz either Friday, Jan. 11 or Jan. 18

• Wedging - A method of kneading clay to make it homogenous by cutting and rolling.
• Viscosity- The state of being thick, sticky, and semifluid in consistency, due to internal friction.
• Rule of Thumb- Anything thicker than your thumb needs to be hollow, this helps with structural integrity and prevents chemical water

REMINDER- whenever you are absent or miss class, you are responsible for borrowing a classmates' notes, I may not always be able to post them on this website.

The Fantastic Fours of Art

Raise your standards

All Boyer Valley Art Students

Mark your calendars for two Art Shows that 9-12 grade students should participate in next Spring.

• Sioux City Art Center's 22nd Annual Juried Youth Art Exhibition February 18-April 8
  >Works must be delivered January 5-11
  >Details in Guidelines coming in November
  >Reception/Awards Sun. Feb, 19 1:30-3pm
• Western Valley Conference Art Show Thursday March 22
  >Either Ida Grove or Odebot (TBA)
  >Up to 10 BV students  may attend 

Ceramics End-of-Year Portfolio

Each student will produce at least 5 projects.
Portfolios will be due on May 10 for Seniors, May 17 for underclassmen. Students should refer to the columns below for planning their artworks.

Statuary:
· Head
· Another Hand
· Figures
· Animals
· House
· Another Shoe
· Tile
· Abstract Sculpture

Functional/vessels:
· Wind Chimes
· Pencil holder
· Mug
· Paper weight
· Memo holder
· Letter holder
· Book rest
· Trivet
· Keepsake box
· Candle holder
· Lamp
· Planter

· Jewelry
· Bubbler
· Valet
· Tea Pot
· Bottle
· platter

Construction Methods:
· Pinch
· Coil
· Slab
· Carved
· Wheel Thrown
· Mold Cast

CERAMICS- Week of April 11-15

Create a 3 course meal*, including:

• a main entrée
• at least one side dish
• at least one dessert or beverage
  *get extra points by making more food

You may also glaze faces, figures and wheel pots, and repair or replace figures that are broken.

Ceramics Vocab- QUIZ TUES SEP4

• Bat- a flat disc made of plaster or wood which affixes to a pottery wheel. Works like a plate or tray for working with clay on.
• Bisque- Pottery which has been fired once, without being glazed yet.
• Bone Dry- Completely air-dried and ready to be fired in a kiln safely
• Clay- Alumina + Silica (powdered stone aka "feldspar") and water
• Plastic- Capable of being molded or modeled
• Plasticine- A plastic paste used for models and sculptures; an oil-based modeling clay
• Medium- a means of transmission, a liquid which carries or suspends something- oil or water
• Working- Sqiushing clay in your hand to make it warmer
• Form- Any 3-Dimensional shape, which has height, width, and depth
• Paul Cezane- French painter who suggested that the visual world is made up of 5 basic forms; cubes, spheres, forms, pyramids, and cones

Ceramics Terms & Rules

• Viscosity- lubricated, prevents friction (add water)
  
• Plasticity- moldable, mailable, workable
  
• Feldspar- powdered stone that, mixed with water, makes clay (as opposed to dirt, soil, mud, earth, etc.)
• Chemical water- trapped moisture at the molecular level that can cause breaks and blow ups in the kiln
  
• Structural integrity- stays together, durable
  
• Consistency of Density- while plastic, makes clay more workable, while drying, prevents cracks and crumbles
  
• Rule of Thumb- Anything thicker than your thumb needs to be hollow, this helps with structural integrity and prevents chemical water
  
• No paper in the clay barrel, it breeds mold and microbes
  
• Please cover the clay barrel at the end of class, so it won't dry out
  

Ceramics

Ceramics will provide students with a conceptual and manual foundation in the field of ceramics. Students will learn the properties of clay, its preparation, hand and wheel techniques, surface design, firing methods, fundamental ceramic terms, principles of design and introductory ceramics history. Students will also be oriented in safe practices of the ceramic artist. Emphasis will be on developing skills appropriate to the beginning student for the purpose of creative expression and technical understanding of the clay as medium

Two of the first skills students develop are creating pinch-pots and coil pots.
With slab-construction techniques, students can create a variety of vessels and structures including "ginger-bread" houses.



An emphasis is put on gesture or manorisms when working with the human figure.


Four of the challenge projects during this semester class include hands, shoes, skulls, and faces.




One of the funnest projects is faux food!

Ceramics; Haunted Houses

Vicki's two-story fixer-upper

Kara's Flintsone's cave, complete with Dino!

Ashley's Dark Tower, notice the bat just below the ramparts!

Just before Halloween, Ceramics students used the slab-construction method to create haunted houses. They are certainly scary!

Ceramics; this week

Monday- glaze small slab boxes
Tues-Fri- Create slab shoes
Meanwhile- we'll start 2 people at a time on the wheel

Ceramics; Trick or Treat

Brett works on his slab-construction creation. Ceramics students are working on "haunted housed" just in time for Halloween.

Ceramics; Coil Pots

Ceramics students are working on week-long coil pots. There are four things to set as goals for yourselves; How tall can you make it and maintain it's structural integrity? How wide (how much volume? Introduce non-horizontal coils and/or some non coils elements like spheres and wedges. This week try to use the banding-wheel so you can turn your pot as you work on it.

Pinch pots are being fired ans should be ready to glaze by Friday.

Ceramics; temporary reprive

5th Hour Ceramics class, please note- A vocabulary quiz was scheduled for this Friday, Sep 21, The final drafts of your research papers were also due this Friday.

This Friday, you will come to Ceramics at 12:38 PM as usual, but at 1 PM you will be dismissed to your various Homecoming Committees at 1 PM

As my gift to you, BOTH the final draft and the quiz, are hereby rescheduled for Monday, Sep 24.
But please make sure to be prepared for both. Happy Homecoming Decoration Day, see you at the Coronation Sunday at 3:30 PM.

Click here to review your terms for the quiz

Ceramics; Terms for Fri 9/21 plus GOOD NEWS!

Here are your terms for this Friday's quiz:

• Crazing
• Crawling
• Englobe
• Glossy
• Matte

Sorry, you won't get the definitions from me here. If you missed class Tuesday and didn't get them off the board, I suggest you ask a classmate to borrow their's. Remember all of my quizzes are always open-note.

Bad News? Your Research Papers are due this Friday, Sep. 21- make sure to make the recommended revisions if you want to get a better grade than the one on your rough draft.

Good News? AT LAST! We have clay!!! Plan to get muddy when I get back on Wednesday!
Girls, kiss those fancy manicures goodbye till next semester.

Mr. Mallory's Rules for using Clay

1. No throwing clay (this is not the zoo and you are not orangutans)


2. Please avoid getting clay or glaze ion other people's clothing or in their hair.


3. Please wedge the clay or work the clay, but do not slam the clay (this is ineffective in warming it up and making it more pliable and it is just plain annoying).


4. Please don't eat the clay (it may be true that clay is just mud, which is just dirt and water and "God made dirt and dirt don't hurt," but it could make you fairly ill, so ingesting any is ill-advised).


5. Please do not make anything that could be considered inappropriate for school:
   A) Overtly and graphiccally violent or occult.
   B) Alcohol, tobacco or illicit drug paraphernalia
   C) Anything sexually explicit, erotic, or suggestive.


6. And a new rule being added just this year because some kids seem to have a problem with it; Please do not draw or write on the tables with clay.

Something silly

Did I ever show you how I got "Simpsonized" this summer?

I know, I know,
Not enough gray hair
not fat enough.

Laugh it up,
remember Midterms are
this Friday (9/14)!!!



Okay, I fiddled with it in PhotoShop a little.
Is this one closer to reality?
I think I like the one the Burger King website gave me better.

Ceramics; terms for Friday Sep 14 Quiz

Here are the NEW terms that will be added for this week's vocab quiz;

• Branding wheel
• Burnishing
• Centering
• Composite Pots

I am half way done, reading through your research papers. I will try to return them either tomorrow or Friday and have your revisions due next Fri. Sep. 21

Still no word on when the stupid clay will get here. We'll have 2-3 more days of "study-hall" this week and start some non-clay sculpture projects next week. Sorry. Thanks for being so patient.

If you ever have any questions, please let me know malloryt@boyer-valley.k12.ia.us

Research Paper

Take a closer look at a PDF example

Some of my Ceramics students have had a rough time trying to get their research papers formated correctly. Remember to refer to a copy of the BVCS Research Paper Guidelines handbook (available in the office or from your English teachers). But when in doubt, the JPEG above, or the link to the PDF will show you how it should look.