Sgraffito Tile

For this project we were given an oddly shaped piece of clay and we were instructed to design this tile and turn it into something. At first I didnt know what to do for my tile, it didnt really look like an animal and nothing came jumping out to me, so I looked around and thought my clay tile looked like a cloud. I thought maybe id just do a few clouds but I felt that was boring so I thought of things that go into the clouds. This is where I thought of hot air balloons.

I began this project by drawing out my idea on scratchboard, this allowed me to take away material rather than add it like a typical piece of art. Once I had my scratch board idea down I began to draw into the clay tile that was bone dry. I received this tile already covered in an under glaze, so I was able to just start carving rather than laying down glazes. For this project I just kind of jumped in, I had my scratch board idea for reference but didnt end up transferring anything onto the actually clay, so I began to carve away I realized that I wouldn't have enough room for the original four balloons I had wanted. With only three balloons the image seemed a little dry, so I decided I would go back to my original idea of clouds. I wanted the clouds to be a light addition and not break too much of the black background. So I decided to add Cirrus clouds which are short string like clouds that lay horizontally. I felt that this added a nice touch and make the clouds feel like they had an environment.

Overall, I loved this project. The change in material was needed and I feel more inspired by it. This project is one that I always seem to enjoy over the course of the years and I liked how this year we werent allowed to pick the shape of the clay where in years past we have gotten to make whatever (squares, circles etc.) I think that this made it harder to come up with ideas but in the end made the work more creative.