Stamp/Tile Project

For this assignment we needed to make a mold out of plaster which we then pressed clay into it to make identical tiles which we piece together in whatever pattern we like to create a design. I decided to make a pizza/sun combo which I thought was kind of cool. You start by making a design of 1/4 of what you want the final product to look like so when you use the mold you make 4 of them and piece them together.

To create this I used glazes, pokey tools, plaster, and clay. We started by making a tile out of clay. We then used wooden boards to make a square box, sealed it with clay, added our tile into the center of it, and poured the plaster over it. After it dried we took the clay out of it and got to plaster clumps out of it. At that point we were able to press clay into it to make tiles. I found that pouding the clay into the mold made it join together better so that there weren't as many lines in the clay.

I tried different glazes on test tiles to see which ones I liked the best and what worked better and applied that to my final tiles. The teal color on the test tiles came out a little see thru but I liked the color so I made sure that I let the coats dry more before I added more glaze and I also added an extra coat just in case to make sure it wasn't see thru on the final project. I ended up not adding the sun rays on the top of the tile because I simply forgot and also didn't want to mess anything up after they came out of the mold. If I were to do this assignment again I would try and add the sunrays to see how it would look. I would also try to smooth the tiles out better on the edges. I did a decent job with that initially but in my final product there is one tile that I didn't smooth as well and it doesn't really fit into the other tiles well.