Sgraffito Tile

The directions for this piece were pretty loose, so I went in a pretty abstract direction for my design. There's really no deeper meaning behind what I carved, but I still like the way it turned out. I started drawing lines and just went with where it took me. Once I had an outline, I started the middle design which I have seen people do as drawings, so I tried to replicate it. Then at the end, I added the shape outlines in the negative space to add some detail.

For my first sketch I just drew on drawing paper what I wanted to be the design, it's pretty messy but still shows how I wanted it to look. I then used the same design but on scratchboard instead. This better represents what the sgraffito tile is like, and the design is neater there than before. Finally, I used carving tools to create the design on my sgraffito tile. In the picture to the left, the design on top is my unfinished sgraffito tile, before being glazed and fired. Then after both, the finalized product is on the right.

Overall I like the way it turned out, the design isn't super complicated or meaningful but I like the way it compliments the shape of the tile and I think it fits well. If I were to do it again I might try something less abstract and try to replicate some sort of animal or thing maybe, but I like the design for the first time doing it. This was the first time using the carving tools on a sgraffito tile, so it was a bit strange at first, but I liked how it worked and I had fun with this.