THE COUNT DOWN TO CHRISTMAS HAS STARTED.

The Christmas spirit has come to my Atelier early this year.  I have some new offerings for you that would make delightful gifts, or additions to your Christmas decor.  All are on sale in my Etsy Shop

Loving the new textures.

My love affair with texture continues! This series of mugs and tumblers were made by impressing a carved lino cut design into the clay before slab building into its final form.  I embellished with additional tool marks and slip trailing. I am so pleased with the colors.  I wanted safe, soft and clear semi transparent glazes, so I took my favorite recipe for a basic liner glaze, and tweaked it and added colors.  Expect many more colors to be added in the coming months.

Working on Sgraffito

Work in progress. Hours of pleasure removing the colored slip to reveal the contrasting clay beneath.

Sgraffito Rocks!

Those of you who follow me on Facebook will have gathered by now that I have fallen under the spell of the sgraffito technique.  I guess it is because it affords me a complete range of expression, from throwing the form, to the design elements of decoration, and the most satisfying aspect of the tactile experience of carving.  I am being nudged into a whole new direction, combining relief stamping, with sgrafitto negative space design, incising and slip trailing.  I am excited about following where this is all leading me. It would seem for the moment that "color" is taking a back seat to the "clay" as I am restricting the surface color to one or two colors in contrast to the basic clay color.

More Clay and Lots more Color

So sorry for the long silence.  That's what happens when you get buried in work! But I have not stopped potting and playing with clay.  Far from it.  This week my Etsy Shop will be restocked with exciting new techniques and pieces.  As you will all see, I have fallen in love with the sgraffito technique.  It is quite labor intensive, but so exciting and tactile.  I will soon post a blog on the technique itself, but for now, let me bring you up to date with what I have been producing.