Sgraffito Tiles

I will be focusing on the blue circle tile. With this work, I tried to make a flower design by carving it out of a clay tile that I rolled and shaped myself.

I started this work by rolling and working clay into a flat shape and then cutting out a circle. After waiting a few days for the clay to dry out a little bit I put on three coats of blue underglaze. I then started carving my design very carefully, I did my best to make it look like a flower. It was difficult to keep the carved lines clear of any clay dust, so I did the best that I could. After I carved the tile it had to sit until it was 'bone dry', and then it could be put in the kiln.

It was a little difficult to get the underglaze on smoothly without any streaks so I did have to do some extra brush strokes to get it as even as possible. It was also difficult to clear every particle out of the lines that I carved because they were so small but I think I did a relatively good job of keeping them clear.