Greek Pottery

Ancient Greek Pottery

 

 

Carrying on from the Greek architecture, the children began work on their own Greek pottery. We began with looking at the importance of the pottery and how each one told a story or represented different myths. The children were shown a video explaining how the pottery was made. We are not lucky enough to have a kiln in school so we used air drying clay so I felt it was important to know the process for the Greeks was different. We then looked at form and how to use them in 3D work to get the shapes we desired. each child used a balloon to get their sphere shape and added cardboard cylinders to the top and bottom. Some added extra shapes for handles.

 

 

We then took the next lesson to cover it completely in papier mache. Getting the children to mix their own recipe following the instructions and ingredients was a great opportunity for them to practise their measuring skills, giving your lesson an added curriculum link to maths.

It was in the next lesson that I really pushed them to think about positive and negative space. they had to decide whether they would paint in the positive or negative. the children covered their vases in a layer of orange paint. and made sketches in their books as to what story of Odysseus's' they wanted to depict on their vases while they dried.

 

 

After they were dry the children set about painting with thin brushes. Most chose to paint in the positive with and orange background and black figures. Some did attempt the negative where they filled the space around their figures with black leaving their design orange.

 

 

We had some interesting depictions, including the Cyclops and the battle of Troy to the witch Circe turning Odysseus's men into pigs.