WHAT DO I ALWAYS TELL MY STUDENTS?

MISHIMA & SGRAFITTO

CERAMICS II

clay, porcelain slip, oxide, & glaze

It's all about surface design!

And two great techniques are Mishima, 

an inlay technique,

and Sgrafitto,

an overlay technique.

This soft, sensitive swallow bowl belongs to senior Sarah Chang.

She was able to search thru my Kiln room shelves and find a tiny bag of left over Pink Oxide

which she poured into liquid porcelain slip

 to change up the colorway from off white to light pink.

She mixed that up thoroughly and did her Mishima in the center.

A close up.

To do the Mishima technique 

she built her porcelain bowl then used her sharp needle tool (bug pick)

to incise design lines into the clay's center area.

Next she used a brush and pushed the pink slip into those lines to fill them back up. 

And now the fun part.

When the slip and bowl are a bit past leatherhard she took a flexible metal rib

and scrapped across the surface to reveal her design.

Wella!

Here is a close up of her Sgrafitto area.

To do this part she brushes on the pink liquid slip directly onto the bowl's rim

when her bowl is still plastic.

Then when it all dries to leatherhard she carves out her design.

When I was in college these were two of my favorite techniques to do 

when I really wanted to make the pot's surface special.