Scraffito Cup and Saucer

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These were porcelain cups that originally had handles except that they dried too fast and the handles got cracks, so I removed them and made them into tea bowls instead.  I painted a thin black stain on it called “Seth’s Black Ink” after a ceramicist who uses this technique.  After the stain dried, I scratched it away using scratchboard tools.  It’s a horrible process, because I have a visceral aversion to the dryness and the dust and that atrocious scratching sound, but I love the way it looks.

That is, I would have loved the way it looked, had it turned out the way I wanted.  If you fire it to cone 5, the black is jet black and the white is white, and it’s fantastic.  But porcelain isn’t functional at cone 5 like it is at cone 10, so I fired it higher.

2 comments

    • Amy on October 5, 2009 at 12:29 pm

    i think it’s still fantastic!

    • Keyan on November 2, 2009 at 10:49 pm

    The crow is elegant. It’s very subtle.

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