Before and After: A Refurbished Ocarina

Taking a short break from my drawing project, I turned to refurbishing some of my ocarinas. The one pictured above and at right was pit fired in 2010. While I was giving him the critical once over before sending him off to market again, I noticed that he didn’t have a good polish and there were a few scratches. I refinished the whole surface, put another coat of wax on him and buffed it out. I then drilled out eye sockets in which I set pearl cabochons. For a final revamping, I etched out a sgraffito design on the top and bottom surfaces. The surface underneath (belly side) I now recall had a coat of white terra sigillata, which had been reduced

to black in the pit firing. The sgraffito design in this area brought out bright white details as I etched into the layer underneath the blackened surface.  You can see this better in the upside-down picture below. In garden variety clothes before, this little ocarina now goes to market better dressed.