For the Basic Activity lesson, all you need is a way to show 2 short videos – altogether less than 10 minutes – and your regular clay materials. Click on the "Videos and Slideshows" link at the top of the page to access them. If your school blocks videos, you can download them to your computer to show using a free software program called Miro. It is very simple to use. Find it at www.miroguide.com. See below.
If you have a little more time and access to a little technology tools and/or Internet, then you can use additional Enhancement Activities for a fun and engaging lesson that you and your students will enjoy. Your students will surprise you with what they come up with in both ideas and artworks.
If you have a little more time and access to a little technology tools and/or Internet, then you can use additional Enhancement Activities for a fun and engaging lesson that you and your students will enjoy. Your students will surprise you with what they come up with in both ideas and artworks.
Basic Activity Lesson for Creating Mimbres Style Bowls
Time: 4-5 Hours
Concepts and Terms:
Coil
Coil Method
Score
Slip
Score and slip
Leather hard
Parts of a bowl: foot, body, rim
Objectives:
Student will create sketches of designs based on the works of the Mimbres and create a bowl using the coil method.
Procedure:
Show the 3 short videos that you will find on the "Videos and Slideshows" page (link at top of this page) entitled The Potters of San Marcos and Coil Pot Demonstration. The first is of a professional potter digging clay out of the earth, preparing it and making a coil pot from in a traditional manner. Wonderful resource.
If you cannot access video sites at your school, I’ve included very simple instructions for downloading them to your computer. Just go to https://www.miroguide.com/ and download Miro. It’s simple to use for downloading and viewing videos to your computer so that you can show them at school.
The second video is a short demonstration video for creating a coil bowl that I put together as an overview. It is only about 3 minutes long.
After viewing the videos, take students through the first few steps in creating their own bowls – they can complete the bowl up to putting on the foot. Use red clay if possible so that students can use black and white slip to create their designs on their bowls.
If students don’t get to the bowl part completed before having to leave, wrap their bowls completely in plastic. Others that are ready to have the foot attached can have plastic simply draped over them so that they can get leather hard. Keep an eye on them that they don’t dry out more than that.
When the bowls are barely leather hard, students can score and slip the bottom to attach a foot, following the directions on the video.
Tech Tip: While young potters are creating their masterpieces, keep the how-to slide show showing with the sound turned all of the way down. Students can look up and refresh their memories on how to do different parts rather than constantly calling you over.
After the foot is attached, lightly mist the bowl section with water, and loosely lay plastics over the bowls so that the foot may start to get leather hard. This is a good time to show the Mimbres Bowls slideshow and have students start to sketch possible designs for their bowls.
If time allows, this is a good point at which to do some of the additional enhancing activities.
When students have come up with designs, it is time to paint them onto the pots. The pots should be no dryer than leather hard: perhaps a bit less dry than that. If they are too dry, the slip will flake off.
Designs can be made by using a template –drawn on tracing paper and an exacto-knife used to cut out sections to use as a template on the bowl. Or designs can be painted on directly. A third alternative is to fire the bowls and paint the designs on with underglaze.
While bowls are drying and being fired is another good time to add enrichment activities. Click on the Enrichment Activities link in order to find the list of activities that can be used specifically for this project.
I use a final coat of glaze on the bowls in order to make them usable, but explain or show how burnishing is done. The student work here was decorated with black and white slip and glazed.
