Sgraffito Clay Tile

This project was used by building off the project we had done before, the idea that we take away the highlights rather than adding them. to start we used scratchboard, Scratchboard allows the highlights to be pulled instead of when using a pencil to fill in the shadows. When using scratchboard, small tools are used that are called scratch tools and they have sharp tips and are used to take away the ink that lays on top. One problem that scratchboard causes is that there is no gray because the background is white and top layer is black, so to get a gray looking color you have to take less of the black away creating a ratio of black to white. After we moved on to using clay bone dry clay and underglaze to create a scratchboard like material, one where I could pull the highlights and leave the shadows.

By putting underglaze on bone dry clay and then using small tools to take away the black underglaze I was able to put my design into the clay. The idea being that by taking away the underglaze it exposes the white clay underneath and then when fired will create a hard piece of clay with the design in it. The first project I created was a compass with the rays of the sun on the top and the night of the mountains on the bottom. I liked this idea because it showed by love of the outdoors and also created an interesting piece of art that had en equal amount of black and white showing.

After I finished taking away the underglaze and I had an image that I liked and it was fired I added three layers of clear glaze, this will had a glass like finish to my piece of work. Overall I really enjoyed this project I liked how precise I had to be because once I took away some of the underglaze I couldn't add it back. This made me slow down and really think about the lines that I was putting down. This project was challenging with the fact that I had a small area to work with because my slab of clay wasn't that big and I had to get all my ideas down on without making it look crowded and messy.