Just adding a few accents of colored flashing slip to a quick batch of oval vases. They may look white now… but after a soda-firing, these slip accents should turn orange… my favorite color!!!

While the new class session starts this week, I found these pictures from last session… when one of my Intermediate Wheel students was working on decorating this large platter. Maya has been working on making a collection of large platters to install on her wall at home. They all have a “leaf motif”… like this one with fresh oak leaves pressed onto her platter, painted with thick white slip… and then the leaves removed to leave natural impressions & patterns. Beautifully done Maya!!!

After wiping away the excess underglaze, my SURFACE DECORATION students were left with cylinders with great “illustrations” incised into their cylinders highlighted with colorful underglaze. These will now dry & be bisque-fired… and then glazed. It was a great way for my class to wrap-up after tackling several different techniques over the past 10-weeks. Thanks for playing everyone!

After letting the underglaze set-up a bit in the carved areas, we gently wiped away the excess that was sitting on top of the wax resist… carefully leaving as much underglaze in the carved lines as possible.

After carving their mishima patterns, my SURFACE DECORATION students then painted the waxed surfaces with colored underglazes. The idea is that the underglaze can “fill” the carved patterns, but will sit on top of the wax everywhere else!

Last night we celebrated the end of our SURFACE DECORATION class with one last technique… MISHIMA. First we painted the surface with a layer of wax resist. Once dry, we carved designs into the clay with sharp-tipped tools… with the plan of carving through the wax & into the clay. Such focus… such determination…

So tonight is the last class for my SURFACE DECORATION students. Sure, we could sit back, relax & potluck… but instead I told them we have one more surface decoration technique to tackle!!! MISHIMA.

I told them to bring some leatherhard cylinders to class as part of their homework. And I told them that I would NOT be providing pre-made cylinders for them to practice on this time!!!

Okay… so maybe I lied.

After the class discussion & demo about sgraffito, my SURFACE DECORATION class set-off to decorate their own pieces. The goal was to get crisp clean lines & patterns carved through the dark layer of slip or underglaze to reveal the lighter clay body. They really enjoyed using my collection of DiamondCore Tools to get some crisp & clean carving lines. The perfect way to let their creative expressions reveal themselves!

For my SURFACE DECORATION class last week, we tackled some sgraffito… decorative carving through a contrasting color layer to reveal the lighter clay body color below! We talked about a few techniques & tricks… and then I started carving a couple of my platters as a demo… and soon enough they were ready to tackle their own pieces! Good thing I had my DiamondCore Carving Tools ready for some crisp clean lines… that also made some pretty cool “zebra” layered clippings!

Prior to last week’s SURFACE DECORATION class, I threw these three large platters and added a band of black underglaze. The goal was to get them to a nice stiff leatherhard stage to be ready for our surface decoration project demo of the week. Yep… you guessed it… SGRAFFITO!!!