Student work ready for the first firing in the kiln.

Leah Krueger

Sgraffito comes from an Italian verb that means “to scratch.” As a pottery technique, it refers to scratching through a layer of underglaze to allow the color of the clay to show through, creating a beautiful contrast and interesting design.

Brainstorming Radial Designs
Inspired by the process of designing mandalas, students incorporated radial symmetry into designs based on the natural world. They used their sketchbooks to document their understanding of the sgraffito process and radial symmetry and sketched designs inspired by nature. This planning page was referenced throughout the project, and students discussed their ideas with one another during a peer review. This critique process helped them refine their designs and create simplified but effective compositions.

Pressing, Pulling, and Sketching
Students created hand-formed ceramic bowls by rolling a smooth ball of clay and then pressing it into a flat, thick disk. This shape was perfect for pressing and pulling clay from the middle toward the edge, rotating the clay as they worked.

Students gained confidence through making mistakes and became resilient, creative problem-solvers.

When the bowls were leather-hard, students applied two coats of underglaze. We used white underglaze to contrast the red of the clay.

While we waited for their glaze application to dry, my demonstration bowls were passed around from table to table, allowing students to practice with the sgraffito tools before working on their own designs. Students made their final edits to their sgraffito templates before using a soft pencil to lightly sketch the design on their projects.

The Sgraffito Process
We used metal sgraffito tools to press through the underglaze into the clay and pull a beautiful design line.

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