The Process
The Inspiration
So, the first thing to do was to find a ceramic technique that no one had seen. I google searched, "Ceramic Techniques," and what came up was in the thousands. One, I had never realized how many techniques there were. Two, this was going to take a while. I started by eliminating the techniques that I had seen before, then the ones that I didn't like, and then the techniques that seemed to take more time than I had. After everything had been eliminated, there were still a TON of options, but they were easier to look at and narrow down. After searching for what seemed like hours, but was maybe only a half an hour, I finally found something. I came upon a YouTube video of what appeared to be a Russian man decorating a form on a wheel. What he was doing really intrigued me because I, myself, often decorated forms on the wheel. This was right up my alley way. Check out the video below:
How Did That Russian Man Do It?
After watching the video about a dozen times, I thought to myself, "I want to do that... I lied, I NEED to do that." So I went digging. I looked through the description bar and the comments to figure out what tool he was using, what glaze he was applying, and when he was applying the glaze. Let me tell you, a lot of it was in Russian, which didn't help anything. I tried copying and pasting some of the comments into google. That didn't work out. Finally, I was able to find some English comments that told me everything I needed to know. Success! Here is what I found out. He was using a Precision Applicator, which is a tool that allows you to precisely apply glazes. Next, I found out that he was using either, colored slip, underglazes, or engobe (Huh???) and applying it onto a leather-hard and trimmed form.
I Got To Work
Not knowing what engobe was, I immediately scratched that off the list and didn't even bother to google it. So instead, I gathered the glaze that was accessible to me, underglaze. Next, I needed to throw a form to do the technique on. I decided to throw a bowl with the lip of the bowl laid out. I also threw a couple in case I messed up on the first one. I trimmed all the bowls, took them home with my various colors of underglaze, and realized I was missing something. I googled the hours of our local ceramic supply company and found out it was closing in 45 minutes, great. I zoomed over in my car (I may have sped), and bought the tool that was essential for this project, The Precision Applicator. Time to get started, but for real this time.