dragon ceramic mural at Caulfield Grammar, Wheelers Hill

above: A close up photograph of the scales arranged on the wall. Each scale was made by a year 7 student. They were decorated with underglazes and finished with a gloss earthenware glaze.

above: A close-up of the dragon's face. This was made by the artist working with some year 8 students.

above: Our finished dragon on the wall. The dragon was made to farewell the Principal Stephen Newton. As he initiated the Nanjing Campus of the School in China, a dragon was made to celebrate his connection with Chinese culture. The words above the dragon translate as 'dragon horse spirit', but signify much more.

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Constructing the dragon at Caulfield Grammar School

This is the original design drawn up to scale based on the size of the mosaic base. From this plan the patterns for the head and legs of the dragon were made. The patterns were enlarge from the plan using a 10:1 scale.

above:This shows the head in detail and how it is painted with about four different shades of underglaze.

above: A picture of the head and scales, shows how we laid out the design on a table to check how it was going. It was also laid out to show the students how the scales would be used to make the dragon.

above: The Dragon begins. This picture shows where we are in the construction process after two days. I have included a picture of me so that you can see the size of the dragon. At this stage the legs and head of the dragon are still in the kiln, so only the scales and tail have been added and we have been mosaicing a black and blue background.

Caulfield Grammar School - making a dragon out of clay

Above: The head and scales of the dragon made out of clay.
Some year 8 students worked with Debbie to make the head out of clay. It was decorated with underglazes. Later it was cut into four parts.

Above: These are the legs of the dragon made from clay. A pattern for each leg was drawn up using the original design. Then a slab of clay was rolled out. The pattern was used to guide cutting the shape. Then the shape was made 3D by putting scrunched up newspaper underneath it. Then students rolled little pieces of clay and pushed them onto the leg to make the scales. Each leg was then painted with underglazes.

above: Year 7 students each made a scale for the dragon. They painted them with underglazes. Each scale is tilted upwards on the right hand side so that they can overlap each other on the dragon mosaic.

above: Year 8 students created the tail by rolling out clay and cutting out the shapes. Low relief designs were pressed into the clay with various tools. The tail was underglazed in yellow with a red underglaze wash put over it later.

above: Here are some of the scales in detail.