Mermaid Tea — Ceramic Scratch Illustration

Hi I’m Alexandra from @piafceramics.
WOW, I thoroughly and totally enjoyed this course. I did a mermaid as my main final project and I included some art nouveau tiles I also made using this technique. They are on mid fire porcelain, and have 3 coats of top clear (Sahara zinc free hf clear glaze by amaco). I fired them to 1200 degrees in a small kiln.
I used amaco velvet jet black underglaze and carved using “diamond core tools”.

Coming from an etching background, I had found sgraffito very imprecise and messy, in the past. Sam’s method of engraving bisqued tiles is a method that allows delicate, thin precise lines- which I love. I was surprised to see the way tone can be achieved with hatching, but also with spreading the underglaze in varying levels of thickness. I am going to continue working this way in my ceramic @piafceramics, accompanied by more colourful work with stencils on greenware. I’m totally hooked. It suits my drawing style perfectly and I simply can’t thank Sam enough for sharing his method. LOVE IT!!!