Clay with Poppy Davis

Materials

Clay

Slip of varying colours

Clay piping bottles

rubber kidney

Rolling Pin

Blank paper

Pens and pencils

Ruler

Spray bottle with water

Metal carving tools

Techniques

Slip Transfer:

1. Draw a design on a piece of blank newspaper or white baking parchment and then go over it with a slip, a coloured mixture of clay and water.

2. Wait until the slip mix is dry but not completely dry, and then spray the other side of the paper with water so that you can see the image, but the paper is not soaked.

3. On a rolled-out piece of clay, press the design paper slip side down onto the rolled-out piece of fresh clay. Peel back the paper and then, with a kidney, smooth down the clay.

4. Leave to dry, then fire in a kiln.

   
   
   
   

   

   My slip design on paper with clay underneath.

   
   

   

   Finished slip transfer owl coaster.

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Sgraffitto:

The artist draws on a design to a pre-coloured or under-glazed pottery with metal carving tools to reveal the underlying clay colour. Poppy uses this technique a lot in her work, as seen on her website, https://www.clodstudio.co.uk/.

I did a little bit of this technique on my dinosaur bowl by sketching into pre-coloured lines, for example, the footprints, and the stegosaurus outline.

sgraffito technique

Finished sgraffito stegosaurus pasta bowl

I really enjoyed this session. I have worked with clay before, but in this session I learnt two new techniques to add to my skill set. This is definitely something I want to try again. Thank you Poppy Davis! Why not follow here on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/clod.studio/?hl=en

You can buy some of her work from her website, https://www.clodstudio.co.uk/products.