Relief Tiles
Inspired by Rookwood Pottery tiles, this was our final project of the semester in Ceramics I.
Students began by choosing a photo they liked that demonstrated texture and a clear foreground, midground and background, then breaking the photo down into these pieces. We then traced our background onto our clay slabs and carved deep into our tiles, taking away most of the clay where our background would be. We repeated this process with our midground, taking away slightly less clay, and finally with our foreground, taking away very little clay. When students had removed as much clay as they needed to create defined grounds, they experimented to add a variety of detail and texture to their tile. After firing, students had full access to the underglaze options to paint their tiles with as much detail and depth as possible before the final firing.
