clay: sgraffito #1

My first try at carving into underglaze from even more clumsy techniques at throwing—-a bowl that I couldn’t successfully pull up more thereby resulting in a “blate” rather than a bowl. And since it was Bmix instead of reclaimed clay, I painted black underglaze into the interior and onto that superficial layer, I scratched with tiny loop tools an illustration of an avocado to make a very, very shallow guacamole bowl. Which I later overglazed with clear on top and Black Pearl on the exterior.      

It’s clumsy, but charming in my eyes. And so I want to persevere and make rectangular tiny bites plates for a tinned fish party, but make that outermost layer of underglaze, marine blue instead of black to carve underwater sea life like sardines and squid and seaweed as well as ocean waves.

The rest of my Sunday evening this week was comprised of trimming the pots that I threw on the previous two Sundays. This bowl was the biggest I've thrown thus far though I tossed another bowl into the barrel of trimmings to be reclaimed because I trimmed too thin and it became warped to hell.                               

For another pot, I thought was going to become a tea bowl, I instead made a handle...

...and inscribed text into it.

I intend to decorate the shit out of it. I'll probably overglaze it with Blushing Pink with a bit of Muddy Waters inside that text to make it darker pink and then adhere a bunch of floral decals on it. 

Meals in the meanwhile during my clay obsession have been multiple taco nights.         

I recently made Rick Bayless's raw tomatillo salsa and Pati Jinich's radish pico. Both of these fresh, chunky sauces are muy fantastico on Mexican dishes. The pickled radish becomes pink and is not too sour and is a crunchy counterpoint to unctuous pork.                   

But the raw tomatillo salsa is absolutely my favorite because it tastes so bright and fresh--it's like another vegetable but in slightly liquid form to a tasty taco. I see many nacho platters with this sauce for dipping.

Last night they were the toppings for a pork and white bean verde mole, which I served like a chili and lots of condiments like white onion, cilantro, Monterey Jack cheese, sour cream. Otra vez, mucho sabor.

clay: underglazing and more sgraffito

A couple weeks ago I trimmed all the bowls I threw the couple weeks before, and instead of inscribing text into this one, I decided to not bisque it just yet and to paint black underglaze in the interior. One week later, I finally carved it on a Sunday night after glazing all my other bowls.    

I liked it; a classmate, Al said it was beautiful while I was carving it, and it has drawn some comments of praise on Facebook. Last night, another Clay Life member said she admired when it was on the greenware shelf. And I’ve since hand built a serving platter and want to sgraffito carve that pot as well but with artichokes. Another week later, I adhered overglazes on my avocado/guacamole bowl.  

 

I also spent the evening painstakingly painting pumpkin and pink underglazes on a platter with a texture I consider art nouveau minimalist for its pinstripes and swirls as well as red, pumpkin, yellow, straw, and green underglazes on these autumn leaves that will be tealight holders and embellishments (they're smaller leaves inscribed with "blessed," "grateful," and "thankful" for the Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving table).

I now also remember that I need to look on the bisque shelves the next time I'm at Clay Life for the snowflakes I cut out inscribed with lyrics from "Winter Wonderland" and "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow." And now looking upon that leaf, I wish I was a bit more blotchy as opposed to streaky with my finger painting of underglazes.