Simply Stupendous sgraffito!
I start this blog feeling like we need a name for our 3GK fans, Gaga has her little monsters, Justin Bieber has his beliebers, and that b**** Carol Baskin has her cool cats and kittens.
So hello our lovely Potheads (hmm, we'll have a think, feel free to put forward your suggestions) as you can see from Claires blog, this was a week for clay! I have my list of usual things I sit and make with clay, hearts, jellyfish, and turtles, so I sat down to make the usual suspects. I then thought to myself, why not try something new? we have been given the gift of time, so why not take advantage!
I had heard about Sgraffito in school, and seen it numerous times on pinterest, I pinned it and it entered the abyss that is made up of never attempted things on pinterest, but you feel like you've somehow achieved something just by pinning it (you're all guilty of this too I'm sure)
For those of you that have not come across the term before, let me enlighten you, it can be your 'word of the day'
I am going to guide you through the process, of how I made this piece, but bear with me, I definitely learnt as I went along
I started with about a 2 inch block of clay and rolled it to about 1/4 inch in thickness. I will vent now, that this process would've been soooo much easier if the slab roller we had purchased didn't disappear somewhere between Miami and Cayman, sad times :-( although I will say, there was a small hole in my bag of clay, so this process of rolling out quite solid clay counted as my exercise for the day.
For this technique we are painting onto unfired clay, therefore I had to use underglaze. Not going too technical, but underglaze is basically coloured clay vs. Glaze which is like liquid glass. I painted 3 coats of black underglaze onto my dish and waited until it was dry.
Ok, I may have made that word up, but I like it. As we learnt earlier, sgraffito is scraping away to reveal a different colour. So in my project, I will be scratching away the black underglaze to reveal the clay body (grey now, but it will fire to a whiter colour) In being my first attempt, I should have kept it simple, however, I am the pattern princess (written on my first business card as part of 3 girls!) so I did quite a complex design. The tricky part of this process, is that you cannot sketch first or make any kind of helpful mark making, as soon as you draw anything on this, its permanent, scary! Luckily I've done these types of pattern many times, so lots of practice helped, also the busyness of the pattern, means that many of the mistakes that felt massive at the time, are barely noticeable by the end. I used an old ball point pen to draw my design into the clay, pressing quite hard, to make sure I got through to the clay layer. Once finished, I left the bowl out to dry for about 3 days, and then popped it in the kiln! 
I love unloading a new pattern or project from the kiln, and this one came with quite the surprise. As I said earlier, underglaze is coloured clay, therefore without the addition of a clear coat, will come out matte. This is what I expected, and thought I would be putting the dish back into the kiln for a second firing with a clear glaze. However, my bowl came out shiny! It turns out the underglaze brand that I used also mixes in some silica, this resulted in shiny black. I really like the contrast of the shiny black and the matte unglazed clay, and I think I will leave it as it is. This however means it will be purely decorative and not food safe, but its so pretty, who would want to cover it up with food anyway.
So hello our lovely Potheads (hmm, we'll have a think, feel free to put forward your suggestions) as you can see from Claires blog, this was a week for clay! I have my list of usual things I sit and make with clay, hearts, jellyfish, and turtles, so I sat down to make the usual suspects. I then thought to myself, why not try something new? we have been given the gift of time, so why not take advantage!
I had heard about Sgraffito in school, and seen it numerous times on pinterest, I pinned it and it entered the abyss that is made up of never attempted things on pinterest, but you feel like you've somehow achieved something just by pinning it (you're all guilty of this too I'm sure)
For those of you that have not come across the term before, let me enlighten you, it can be your 'word of the day'
[zɡräˈfētō, skrä-]
I am going to guide you through the process, of how I made this piece, but bear with me, I definitely learnt as I went along
Materials
- Clay
- Rolling Pin
- Blade (a knife, not the vampire hunter)
- Underglaze
- Paint brush
- Patience
- Ball point pen
Step 1 - Roll out a slab of clay
I started with about a 2 inch block of clay and rolled it to about 1/4 inch in thickness. I will vent now, that this process would've been soooo much easier if the slab roller we had purchased didn't disappear somewhere between Miami and Cayman, sad times :-( although I will say, there was a small hole in my bag of clay, so this process of rolling out quite solid clay counted as my exercise for the day.
Step 2 - Slumping
Possibly a new technique for you to learn about too, slumping in this situation is laying clay into a mould to shape it. In this scenario I slumped it into a large bowl I have. Once slumped I pushed it down with my hands and then used a blade to trip away all the excess clay (to be turned into jellyfish later)
Step 3 - Drying time
This is the part that takes patience, you're trying out this new fun technique, and you have to sit and wait before you can try it out, boooorrrrriiinggg. The clay needs to be leather hard for this technique, the clay likes to dry out at the edges first, but I needed it to all be the same dryness. To achieve this I wrapped it loosely in plastic and left it for a few days (yes days!)
Step 4 - Glazing
For this technique we are painting onto unfired clay, therefore I had to use underglaze. Not going too technical, but underglaze is basically coloured clay vs. Glaze which is like liquid glass. I painted 3 coats of black underglaze onto my dish and waited until it was dry. 
Step 5 - Sgraffitoing
Ok, I may have made that word up, but I like it. As we learnt earlier, sgraffito is scraping away to reveal a different colour. So in my project, I will be scratching away the black underglaze to reveal the clay body (grey now, but it will fire to a whiter colour) In being my first attempt, I should have kept it simple, however, I am the pattern princess (written on my first business card as part of 3 girls!) so I did quite a complex design. The tricky part of this process, is that you cannot sketch first or make any kind of helpful mark making, as soon as you draw anything on this, its permanent, scary! Luckily I've done these types of pattern many times, so lots of practice helped, also the busyness of the pattern, means that many of the mistakes that felt massive at the time, are barely noticeable by the end. I used an old ball point pen to draw my design into the clay, pressing quite hard, to make sure I got through to the clay layer. Once finished, I left the bowl out to dry for about 3 days, and then popped it in the kiln! 
Step 6 - The Reveal
I love unloading a new pattern or project from the kiln, and this one came with quite the surprise. As I said earlier, underglaze is coloured clay, therefore without the addition of a clear coat, will come out matte. This is what I expected, and thought I would be putting the dish back into the kiln for a second firing with a clear glaze. However, my bowl came out shiny! It turns out the underglaze brand that I used also mixes in some silica, this resulted in shiny black. I really like the contrast of the shiny black and the matte unglazed clay, and I think I will leave it as it is. This however means it will be purely decorative and not food safe, but its so pretty, who would want to cover it up with food anyway.
Thanks for reading, I best get on the old Pinterest and figure out what else I can actually try out, fingers crossed I don't have any Pinterest fails.
-Debs
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