Practical Teaching Tip: Rolling out Ceramic Slabs

This year I applied for a grant to have a visiting artist come into my class and work with my students to create a community service project. The artist specializes in ceramic tile and murals. The location my students selected to install the mural is a child care center in our community that focuses on students with special needs. After many sketches and visits to the school, we devised a plan. Each student is going to create a ceramic tile to boarder a window. In the community room of their building there are 3 large windows. One is shaped like a triangle, one is the shape of a semi-circle and the other is a square. Each window is going to have a different theme (outer space, our world, and locally our state Florida).

Practical Tip: I don't have a slab roller. Usually my students just roll out their slabs with dowel rods and a rolling pin. The artist brought a little contraption that I would like to share. Her husband used some scrap materials from his wood shop, but of course you could use other wood materials. Basically, there is a bottom piece with slats stapled to the sides. Then she used canvas to cover the wood so that the clay would not stick. She also used foam shelf liner.

The board with slats stapled to the sides

The set up: board, canvas, foam shelf liner, rolling pin and wooden stencils

Students Rolling out their Slabs

Step 1: Get your piece of clay, wedge it and then begin to flatten it out with your hand.
Step 2: Next, put the clay on the canvas inbetween the slate, and roll the slab out with a rolling pin (you should flip the clay to stretch it and change the direction of the particles so that it does not warp).
Step 3: Finally, gently roll the foam shelf liner on the back (you do this so that it creates a texture on the back of the tile. This helps to aid in drying, helps to prevent warping of the tile, and gives it grooves so that when you attach it to a wall it has grip.
Step 4: Use a stencil to cut out your tile. We used  a piece of wood the size of the tile, so that they would be consistent throughout all of their tiles.

Special Note: at first I had my students put the foam shelf liner under the clay and then roll their clay out. Since our clay was fresh it was really wet and was getting stuck to the foam shelf liner, so that it why in Step 3 I say to make the texture after.