Sgraffito Tile

The subject of my creation is and octopus. What I did to make this was, I rolled clay into a ball, and rolled it out flat with a roller pin. I then took a circular object to cut it out into a circle. I waited over night, and then glazed it with soft brush. I then waited another night till the glaze was dry, and started scratching out an octopus with a scratch tool. I also traced some of the octopus with a soft 6B pencil, and scratched it out. I then waited another day and glazed over it with clear glaze to make it shiny, and the teacher put it into the kiln. I chose to create an octopus because I thought it would be really cool to make especially with the arms going in every direction. Specific elements and principles I used in the Sgraffito tile was, line as you can see through out the outline of the octopus and the stripes in the background. Specific principles I used in my artwork was, pattern, you can see I used this in the background with the stripes.

Composition rules and techniques I used in my art work was, informal balance. As you see in the picture, I put the octopus' body on the left hand side of the tile, and let the arms roam free making it have informal balance. An other composition rule and technique I used was, rule of thirds. I put the body in 1/3 section, the arms in the 2/3 section and the 3/3 section to the right is almost blank. My project evolved by first starting on a piece of scratchboard paper, to then transforming into artwork on a tile. I also changed the arms man times so that it was proportional to the octopus body.

The meaning of this artwork is to just be free. You shouldn't care what anyone thinks. As you can see the octopus is just being free and letting loose. His arms are going in every direction and he seems pretty content with life. This relates to my life because that is exactly what I do not do and I really need to try and do just that. I am always stressed out about grades and homework, and everything else that I am doing that I can never just let loose and be free like the octopus on the tile seems to be. If I could change anything about this project, it would be the head. It's really hard because you can't redo anything, and if you mess up you can just erase it. My scratchboard part of this project was beautiful and proportional, but this one is the opposite. So if there was anything I'd want to change, it would be the octopus' head.