workshop

SGRAFFITO - drawing with clay

Multiple techniques, sgraFfito, stencils, drawing, slips

with Hilary Bryanston and Anna Warchus

Sgraffito (in Italian "to scratch") is a decorating pottery technique produced by applying layers of color or colors (underglazes or colored slips) to leather hard pottery and then scratching off parts of the layer(s) to create contrasting images, patterns and texture and reveal the clay color underneath.

Hilary says - I am attracted to clay not because of its soft tactile qualities. Instead, I like to carve it when it has reached the leather-hard stage. I construct my forms initially either by coiling or by using slab construction technique.

The kind of carving that I practice is called 'Direct Carving.' Instead of making detailed plans in advance, I allow the clay (or stone ) to suggest ideas. The ideas emerge from the material itself. Sometimes, I use white slip so that I can create a sgraffito design into the slip as it dries. White slip is simply liquid clay. I like the effect of pouring white slip over red terracotta because when I create my sgraffito design the red clay fires orange. Sgraffito means scratched. I do this with a sharp point .

So, although I don't plan in detail exactly what I intend to make, I do scribble and draw in my notebooks to keep my ideas fluid. And of course, I do have to decide in advance the general form that I wish to work with.

Because carving is to do with taking away rather than adding on, there is a feeling of unwrapping as I develop my pieces as if the final form already resides within the outer shape.

Anna studied ceramics at the Royal College of Art, worked in potteries in London and Oxford and taught Art in secondary schools. She now has her own studio practice where she creates ceramic sculptures that incorporate themes and motifs associated with the sea and the sea’s relationship with land. 

Anna’s forms shift between symmetry on the wheel and organic development as she combines the processes of working with clay moulds, slabs and wheel-thrown pieces. Surfaces are rubbed with recycled clay dust and sand and daubed with earth-coloured slips. Details are honed by scratching, stencils, printing and the firing process.

Workshop at The Studios, Beaconsfield House, 50 St James Street, Narberth SA67 7DA

Workshop £40 - plus £5 materials and optional £5 Firing

Workshop

wednesday 5th april, 10.30 am to 3.00 pm

extra time if needed to finish pieces

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