about the mud bud classes

"Mud Buds" is art classes for children (and occasional adults). Students not only gain hands on experience creating art but also learn some of the history behind art, artists and styles of art in many cultures across the world.

Types of Classes Available:

Summer Art Classes in my home
available in June and July. Information on summer art classes will be posted at the end of May each year.

School Year Art and or Clay Classes
Art and or Clay classes are offered Fall- Spring during the school year in my home. They are one hour long
Cost: $10 per student per hour (additional materials fees for some projects)
Themes: variety
Size: 5 student spaces available per class.
Specific information about classes will be made available in the posts to the left. That information will first come available in July 2009 for the 09-10 school year.

Traveling Art Classes organized by you
I will travel to your home and teach a unit of classes to a group of children (or adults) that you put together.
Cost: $50/hour for the first 5 students. $5/hour per each additional student. (be sure that you have sufficient space in your home for larger groups).
Materials fees may apply for some projects.
Travel fee will apply for distances that are very far from my home.
(Please organize payment from the members of your group and give me one check for each class)
Themes: Your Choice
Class size: varies

Art Classes in my home organized by you
I generally only offer one or two art classes in my home that I plan and put together by myself. Sometimes the date, time, or theme that I choose does not fit with everyone's schedules and preferences. In that case I can get together with you to schedule your own art classes based on whatever you want your group of kids (or adults) to learn and we can do it whenever it would be good for you (well, it has to fit in my schedule too).
Cost: $50/hour for the first 5 students.
Additional students may be added for $5/person/hour, but my house is not very big, so I cannot host large groups.
Additional materials fee may apply for some projects.
(Please organize payment from the members of your group and give me one check for each class)
Themes: varies

Special Interest Groups:
Scout Groups (Girl Scout, Cub Scout, Boy Scout)
Church Groups
Discounts may apply, contact me for more information on organizing these types of classes.

Special Disclaimers:
I have a baby due at the end of September '09. I am doing my best to schedule around the birth and recovery. Please be patient with me as I plan out the School Year classes right before and after the baby is born. I hope to fit some small 2 day(one for building, one for glazing) clay classes before the holidays! Cross your fingers all of you mud lovers!

Friday, November 14, 2008

Test Trial.

While looking at one of my favorite clay blogs
(ok, i don't really have a lot that I look at)
I noticed a really neat technique for decorating the surface of clay.
You can see it here.
I have worked with masking out areas to create a glaze pattern, and I've used wax resists. I have never used paper stencils and was curious as to how she got them to stick.
I contacted the artist and had a correspondence with her about the technique she used.
She created her patterns using a newsprint stencil and a thick slip.
She applied the newsprint "snowflakes" to leather hard ware and then sprayed it with water so it would stick to the surface. She then smoothed it out and applied a thick slip.

I thought I'd try it using under glaze.
Under glaze is supposed to be applied to green ware, but for this project our time restrictions would necessitate application to clay that was just rolled. Because this is not a normal practice I decided I'd do a trial run.

I also tried the technique using slip from our white clay applied to the terra cotta clay that we will be using for the ornaments.
Different clays shrink at different rates, so of course I needed to do a test run and see if the slip would stay on our terra cotta as it went through the process.
I did the test bisque fire and we will see how it turns out.
If all goes well, this will be our project for next week.

Naturally Jakie wanted to help out, so I found something to do so that he could be both "helpful" and occupied.

Slab Houses


Here is a village of our little luminary houses.
I allowed them to dry (safely away from the hands of little Jakie).
These houses were made using our favorite slab method. Because the clay had to be close to leather hard to assemble the houses, I rolled and cut the pieces for the students. The kids designed the decor of the rest of their homes.
They finished their stamping and cutting just in time for class to end.
I was able to assemble the houses before they got too dry.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Prep Work

Sometimes I need to do some behind the scenes work to prepare for the classes. On Monday we will be making luminary houses. These will make great Christmas decor or gifts. Our clay needs to be a little closer to "leather hard" (ask you kids what this means- hopefully they remember). The stiffer clay will make it easier to assemble the houses. Basically they will have a "house kit" They will do all of the assembly and decorating and they will have to cut their own roof and form the base... so they will be putting a lot of individual work- and they won't have to ROLL OUT CLAY (which i think is not a favorite activity).

I also prepared some test tiles for our glazes. Glazes look different after they have been fired, so after these tiles have been glazed and fired, the kids will know what to expect when they glaze their work.

Angels

Last week we made Angles. UnfortunatelyI do not have a picture of student work, but they look similar to this angel. This is yet another slab project.
photo from Stuido Elan.

underglaze

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We worked for 2 weeks applying underlgazes to our finished work. Underglaze can be applied to greenware (work that is dry but had not been fired) or bisque ware. Once it has been fired it needs to be fired an additional time with a clear coat. Then they will be complete.