Sgraffito Clay Tile

The subject of my creation are crows. The setting is sort-of Halloween themed. I made this by first scratching the design into scratchboard, then tracing it lightly with pencil on a bone-dry slab of clay, after coating the clay with black underglaze. I then scraped the design out of the underglaze until it hit the clay underneath. After that, the clay was glazed and fired. The background of the piece is arranged in four different sections: lightning (top-left), slime (top-right), a spider web (bottom-right), and cracked teeth (bottom-left). Then the mid-ground is three eyes, and the foreground is three crows with floating feathers.

Some principals of designs in this piece include balance and pattern. Balance is shown in how all of the subjects of the piece balance out and nothing is leaning weight more one way than another. Pattern is shown in how there are multiple of the same thing in this project. My project evolved because I decided to spice it up and add the three eyes into my design as a mid-ground.

The story behind this artwork is that it is kind-of Halloween themed, but not really. I was feeling dark, so I guess that's how it turned out. I'm not really sure what other people think about it but I like it. This relates to my life because I like crows/ravens—however weird that might sound—and I like drawing eyes. And they are both in this piece.