Art

After working on their fish for a month, the Grade 1 and 2 students were very excited this week to paint their clay fish. So many skills were learnt to create their fish, and every student is extremely proud of what they have created. The first step was rolling out the raku clay into a slab, the students used a rolling pin and rolled from the middle towards the edge to keep the slab even and made sure it wasn’t too skinny or too thick. After rolling out an even clay slab, they used fish templates and a skewer to cut the fish shapes out of the clay. 

The following week they added scales to their fish by rolling small balls of clay and pressing their thumb into each one. The scales were attached to the fish using the score and slip technique and then smoothed onto the body. The students tried to keep them in rows and ensured they were smoothed out towards the head of the fish and properly joined on. 

The final week they had a go at making lots of coils to add to the tail and fins, it was very delicate work and required good hand/eye coordination. For the finishing touch an eye and mouth were added to the fish and then left to dry for a week to allow all the moisture to evaporate from the clay. After firing in the kiln, the students were amazed at how hard they were and that they had changed colour to white, perfect for painting with water colours and gold and silver paint for highlights. They look so beautiful, I hope when they get home, they find the perfect spot to display them. Here are some of the finished painted fish: