October 26, 2020

Red Earthenware Sculpture with a White Disappearing Act

 During studio cleaning, I came across a number of packages of unused clay, and have been slowly reconstituting it for use in small sculptures and ceramic vessels.  I finally used up all the red earthenware by making more three dimensional figures.  For decoration, I used a design that graced my tiles several years ago.  These were painted with black brush work, then adding white in the background.  The design was then enhanced by scratching thin outlines through the white to expose the red clay body.  



I  painted my figures black and white, then made the outlines in red using the same sgraffitto technique.  These were placed in the kiln and fired  up.  Two days later, however,  when I opened the kiln, I found to my surprise and disappointment that the white background in all my pieces had burned entirely away!  So now my pieces were just black and red!  Annoyed by the fact that all that painting had been for naught, I kept them anyway because they still had nice forms and they were fun to play with.  The first pieces were ceramic chairs that I had used a heart shaped stamp for.



Human and animal figures sported lively designs similar to what I had seen a few years back in Scythian tattoos. They can hold their own in red and black. But they would have been so much bolder in black and white and red!



My red earthenware is now used up, and I don’t anticipate obtaining more of it.  I’m not certain that I can say that it was made into something more useful than a package of hardened lumps in my studio, but at least these small pieces are more interesting. 



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