7th Grader students Make Clay Mugs in Art Class

​Story by Eads Fouche

In Mrs. Michelle Proffitt’s ceramics class, students have been learning how to create mugs. In the process, they learned techniques like slab construction and how to use a paper template to create pieces of a mug. The mugs took three classes to construct.
           
In the process of making the mug, there were multiple steps. At the start, students created a template to cut the slabs of clay. Proffitt said the hardest part was “rolling out the big slabs for the side of the mug.”
           
The second step was to create the sides of the mug and put it on the base. Most of the shapes were simple cylinders, but according to Aidan Simoneau, seventh grade, one student made a mug with a curved lip and another made a mug with a wide bottom, skinny middle, and a wide top like a vase.

Simoneau envisioned his mug to be big and thick so he could drink out of it, but it turned out to be small and thin.

Jagger Albert, seventh grade, a student from first quarter ceramics, made his mug based on a football theme and the handle looked like laces.
           
The next step is to create the handle. The handle must be thick and secured well to the side so that it does not fall off in the kiln.  Simoneau wanted his handle to look like the McDonalds “M.”

After finishing the handle, the mug gets fired in the kiln, and after that, the next step is to glaze.
          
The glaze is the layer over the clay that gives it its color. Albert chose yellow and black. Once he got the glaze, he shook it for five minutes. This gets the glaze ready to be spread on the mug. To get a good overall color, Albert suggested “double check the glaze for a good thickness.”

Albert glazed his football-themed mug yellow and black, while Simoneau glazed his mug orange because he likes the Florida Gators.                                                                                                                                        
The final step is to put the mugs in the kiln to harden the glaze. They then are fired and given back to the students.
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“I really liked this project and would do it again,” Albert said.