Sunday, October 25, 2009

Enlightenment

It's funny that Tracy was talking about rainning acorns on her blog few days ago while I had hard time to find an oak tree to study how its leavies grow. I finally forced myself to park my car on a busy road next to a big oak tree and then took out an utility knife cutting off a small branch. And finally, I can work on my plates that awaited me for 3 weeks.

I used to wonder why Tz'u-Chou potter of Chinese Sung dynasty (960-1279 AD) would painstakinly apply white/ black slips on their pieces and then carvced the slip off to create images. Why don't they just paint with color slip?
After working with my new plates, I understood why........:) They treated clay as clay. They found a proper process for the material they use. What an enlightenment!!

cutting paper templates for drawing
carved off white slip to create outline

carved off white slip around the outline

after broke 2 pieces just right after finished carving, I decided to call it a day. BUT, I am still very happy with what I figured out!!

2 comments:

  1. These are really wonderful! Hope to see the finished glazed pieces when they come out. I think carving the slip is a much better process, so much more depth.

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  2. Very nice stuff. I often ask "why?" when I look at historical pottery, and by doing myself, sometimes answer the question.

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