Sgraffito

This project and type of art were very new to me. In some ways, it was similar to scratchboard because I was scratching away ink to make a design as I did previously with scratchboard. I chose to make this design in my clay because I thought it was very cute and cozy. I also think that it was a good design for this piece of clay because it was small and it looks like it fits well. I think this piece is peaceful and happy and represents love.

To make this I chose to use a piece of clay that was not completely raw shaped and was rectangular. It does have some disproportion to it but overall is a good shape to work with. I used the same scratch tool that I used for my scratchboard because I found that it works best for me. At first, I found it difficult to carve in the clay because the clay dust kept getting in the way and I could see what marks I was making. To prevent this from happening, I used a paintbrush to wipe away the dust and that helped me a lot. To plan out my design, I first sketched it out on a piece of drawing paper and then scratched it out onto scratchboard. The scratchboard helped me because it was so similar to the actual clay sgraffito.

The design I chose to make for this project was not very complex so I didn't have to practice too much. I did Have trouble deciding what to do but when I finally thought of something, it was pretty simple. I had never done sgraffito so my experimenting went as far as scratching onto scratchboard. Overall, I really like how this piece turned out and I thought the process was very new and fun.