Experimenting in Clay

From there I began experimenting with slab work and putting my patterns on the slabs first and then cutting out shapes in different ways. I tried sgraffito, black inlay, the same shape and even trying to keep each piece of a slab so I could put it all back together.

Some of these worked better than others. The dark blue pattern cut out in tear drops worked really well, that's one of my favourite designs and it's really freeing to re create. I liked how I could piece it back together anyway and it would still flow together. I wasn't too keen on the other styles even though I liked the patterns.

Before firing

After Firing

Piecing them back together

They all actually came out looking good but the first picture with the lime green just flows better to me but that doesn't mean I won't incorporate the other techniques I experimented with.

Using this way of working was very freeing, it was like letting nature make the shapes, they were all individual and none broken in the same way- which I feel is very similar to how life goes, we can't control every part of it. It's that power of letting go of control that allowed me to enjoy the process of deconstructing something I made, because in my mandalas I would use these pieces and reconstruct, showing that these broken pieces mean something and fit in somewhere even if they don't look like they do.

Reverse Mandala

I decided to also do a reverse mandala of a sort where I glazed on the design on a slab and then cut out all the shapes.