Ceramic Decoration

1. From experimentation and play, through thinking & imagination - to sensing ahead. [Record your "Tests"]

2. Surface[s]. As you work the clay, ask how shall I treat the forms and surfaces now to activate, integrate, contrast, focus, intensify or make transitions in the finished form?

O P T I O N S:
A. Moist Clay
a) add, carve, mark, and model the clay surface
b) coil patterns, and form structural or decorative embellishment and/or patterning with clay, and various clay colors
c) impressions, stamping, incising, patterning
d) slip decoration (colored clay) - paint, brush, trail or incized B. Clay in Dry State
engobes, oxides, single fire glazing

C. Clay in Bisque State (fired once)
a) engobes, matt underglaze, oxides, pencils and endorgl. crayons - To draw, mark, pattern
b) wax resist - To pattern, mark, design, draw.
c) glaze: brushed, dipped, poured, sprayed - to create similar and other intentions & effects
d) overglazing (020-015) (intensified color through lower temperature? &/or perhaps through repeated firings?)
e) Lusters (metallic, iridescent, pearlescent) using cone-018 for firing.
f) decals/photo silkscreen [stencils? and other printing procedures with multiple firing?]

3. Look freshly at the fired work (not through your expectations)

a) How did the layers fuse?
b) How transparent or opague is the fired surface?
c) Does the color and/or texture need intensifying or muting?
d) What might I do next time?