Sgraffito Time!

Wait! Isn't that supposed to be Chico Time? No, there are no goat herders here folks! It's definitely sgraffito time! This is what I did with those tiles I cut yesterday...

First, I just did some ordinary (and very basic) sgraffito on the round one.


This slip looks quite pinkish in colour, but is labelled "Cocoa" so it will be interesting to see how the colour comes out when it is fired. Also, this round piece is one of the pieces that I added green slip to the clay, so I'm curious to see how green those carved parts will look after firing.

Next, I decided to try some inlaying. I carved the image out of the clay first, and then brushed the coloured slip over it to fill in the grooves.


Once it had dried I scraped the slip off the surface, leaving it in the grooves.


Again, this was on clay that has been coloured with the green slip. I'm thinking now that it would probably look better if the clay was slightly blue! Also, the sun will be brown! Hmm... I need to think about getting some more colours!

On the back of the larger tile I decided to see if it was possible to inlay slip with a different colour slip on the surface. This didn't work too well, although I think it could be possible if the surface colour was painted on really thickly and I was extra careful about scraping back the inlaid colour.


Then all that was left was to carve the last tile. My imagination left home some time ago without saying goodbye, so stuck for inspiration I reached for my drink in my new favourite mug and thought "Aha!".



So as you can see I have been having lots of fun! I can't wait to do some more, and yet I have absolutely no ideas at all! Typical - I couldn't wait for my slip to arrive and now I don't know what to do with it!