Sgraffito Tile

Artist Statement 

The prompt for this project was to create a Sgraffito Tile. It could tell a story, show geometric form or something else. For mine I chose to do a geometric form. I wanted mine to look geometric and organic at the same time therefor why I chose this design. I started by taking an amount of clay I thought was sufficient to be larger than about a 1/4" and 5" by 7" slab with a wire from the bag of clay.  I used the wedging technique to get all the air out of my clay,  and then I rolled this clay to the desired thickness.  Next I used a smooth rib to smooth the surface of the clay and I used a cut out stencil to trace the size I wanted. I also used a needle tool to help me cut this down to the stencil size and did this in a way that wouldn't make the corners flare out. Next I used V-384 underglaze to add color and let it dry to a leather hard stage. Once this was leather hard I when in with several different sized needle tools to sketch off the top layer of underglaze and create my design. I let this bone dry after my sgraffito design was done so it could go into the kiln for a bique fire. Once this was done a clear glaze was added and it was glaze fired for the final product. 

For the specific elements of art I used to create my Sgraffito design, I mostly used line and color. This happens in the color of the underglaze, the orange, as well as in the lines I created with the needle tools to remove the underglaze to show the natural color of the clay. For the principles of designs used to create this piece I used, contrast, movement, and pattern. For the contrast this is the actual difference between the color of the clay and the color of the underglaze. The movement and pattern happens in the argangement and style of the lines. They were arranged like this to show a natural motion of line and the placement of this. 

My inspiriation for this piece was a bunch of leaves scatters but then changed into a more abstract work. This shows the separations between the amounts of color and clay. I wanted this to be showing flow and movement therefore why I had the inspiration from leaves. This relates to my life by showing the natural motion of life that moves back and forth. I am most proud of this piece that I got to create something that I enjoyed creating and that was visually appealing to me. One of the places I struggles was creating the thickness of the slab. I felt like I couldnt get it even without having to roll out another piece. However, I learned that using a technique of cutting the slab where it was most even would be helpful as well as smothing out the top with a smooth rib.