Kermie

Wheel thrown cup using 112 brown speckle stoneware clay body & hand painted with Amaco velvet underglaze. This was my first real experience with painting on clay using underglaze and a wonderful way to explore a new medium for illustration. “Kermie” was featured in the Savannah Clay Community’s annual Sip Show in 2023 amongst over 200 amazing works of art.

More details about the process below.

Pottery // Illustration

Final Result

Process

Using tracing paper, I transferred outlines of the frog with a ball tool onto greenware clay before going in with underglaze, which I layered to ensure the colors were opaque and blended seamlessly.

The outlines left an impression under the underglaze which left a nice guide for the next outlining step. Underglaze colors are fairly close to how they will turn out post-glazing, but there’s still a bit of guessing that happens while painting.

Next, applied wax resists before I carved fine lines around all of the frogs major details with a fine-tipped etching tool. The lines on the interior of the frog were left very thin and I decided to add a bolder line surrounding the entire image which is more in line with the typical graphic illustration style that I gravitate to.

The wax resist protects the colors beneath so that when I carve, it is stripped away and only the newly carved lines will accept color in the next step.

I painted watered-down black underglaze over the carved lines and let it dry completely before wiping off the excess. This allowed the black to really sink into those carved details so that when I wiped the underglaze away, only that on top of the wax resist would be removed.

The result was super crisp, fine lines which helped to really emphasize all of the frog’s color details and features.

Here is the frog cup after its bisque firing, next to the original hand drawn image. I was really pleased with how the colors transformed from the greenware to bisque stage.

For the last step, I once again added wax resist to the entire frog leaving a thin space around the image and dipped in blue glaze (seen in final product images above).