Designing in Dialog with Animals Jennifer Rosseter

Appears in the Mar/Apr 2022 issue of Pottery Making Illustrated.

Successfully designing and illustrating on clay can be both creatively and technically challenging. While I want my work to be visually engaging, real success comes when I can establish an emotional connection with my audience. Often that means moving beyond obvious solutions and creating unexpected visuals in a narrative. 

My artistic vision comes from having spent nearly every Saturday of my youth attending classes and wandering the galleries at the Toledo Museum of Art, coupled with having lived on 24 acres of woods and a creek, surrounded by wildlife. Deer and wild turkeys populated the fields as the sun rose, and dusk brought coyotes, red foxes, vultures, and resident owls perched at the peak of the barn preparing for their evening hunt. This is the imagery that poured onto my clay when I started making ceramics. 

For visual complexity and a narrative to engage the viewer, I use cast-iron industrial parts as frames and source them from antique fairs, architectural salvage, and neighboring barns. 

Design Tips

• Emphasis: Establish a focal point with the most important visual component. Use location, color, size, or contrast. A focal point helps our brains to organize what we’re seeing. 

• Balance: Balance the focal point with the rest of the composition using opposing elements: similar things on opposite sides; a larger element opposed to several smaller elements; or try the rule of thirds—divide your space into thirds, vertically and horizontally, and position key elements at the junctions. Remember, groups of odd
  numbers—3s and 5s—look best.

• Proportion: Consider how the size and weight of each element relates to other elements. Position smaller elements together in groups. Establish weight with color, contrast, and texture. 

• Repetition: Repeat shapes to unify the art. Pick a few patterns of leaves, flowers, or other shapes and repeat them to keep the composition cohesive. Our brains like things that are familiar.

• Movement: Lead the eye through the composition using movement. Think about where you want the viewer to start and end. Create movement with the position of relative shapes, colors, or with curving lines to accomplish a visually fluid composition. 

• Contrast: Use contrast to differentiate shapes and add emphasis. Consider the clay body when choosing colors. Elements’ size, shape, and surface texture also provide contrast.

• White Space: White space is like air. It allows the image to breathe. Even a complex illustration won’t feel frenetic if it has appropriate white space. Use white space with intention.

• Narrative: Engage the viewer with a visual story. Give the drawing unexpected components and allow the audience to sort out the narrative.

• Layers: Think of the design in layers: the narrative and the execution—including color, texture, and dimension. Layers increase the visual complexity, which in turn holds the viewer’s attention for longer periods. 

Planning the Composition and Colors

I use tracing paper to work out the composition and drawing. Because it’s translucent, it allows me to rethink and rework the concept using small patches while avoiding redrawing (1). 

Choose a color palette and consider how the juxtaposition of the innate gloss or matte fired underglazes provide visual emphasis. Try out color breaks using copies of the drawing and colored pencils. Label and use this as a map while you work (2). 

A few things to consider about color: Monochromatic palettes (variations of one color) will be easily visually successful. Analogous colors (beside each other on a color wheel) will always look like they go together. And complementary colors (opposite on the color wheel) will set up bursts of bright, contrasting accents. 

Preparing the Slab

Calculate shrinkage to determine the slab size. I start with clay cut directly from a fresh bag and finish with a ⁵/₁₆–³/₈-inch-thick slab that is relatively square, in order to cut a 15¼-inch-diameter tile. I recommend a low- to no-grog clay as it’s easier to carve. I use Earthen Red (cone 5) from Highwater Clays, which is a dream to work with. I also like Laguna B Mix (cone 6) for a white clay body. And I’ve also used Speckled Brown from both Highwater and Laguna, but it’s brutal on carving tools.

Slam wedge the clay to get to a workable height, then move to a slab roller. Always rotate ¼ turn and flip the slab using drywall for support between each roll to maintain a flat slab until you’ve reached the desired size and thickness (3). 

Using a serrated rib, scratch and compress the slab (scratching really compresses a slab well, and smooths together any folds or irregularities), then smooth with a rounded rib on both sides. Cut a round slab, gauged for shrinkage to fit within your frame—I use a metal pizza pan as a template (4). Smooth the edges and let rest between drywall sheets for a day or two, depending on ambient conditions.

Carving the Back

Always keep the tile on drywall for support. Once the tile is soft leather hard, carve a pattern onto the back using a small, round trimming tool. This removes excess weight, keeps potential cracks from moving through the slab, and helps adhesive adhere securely when mounting. I carve floral and leaf patterns that reflect my image design, but anything is fine. Keep the tile covered between work sessions (5). 

Painting the Tile

When the tile is leather hard, it’s ready to be worked on. For a dark clay body, I prime the front with white underglaze to keep colors vibrant and provide contrast—skip this step if you are using a white clay body. Transfer the drawing with graphite paper or a non-waxy transfer paper using a small ball-stylus tool or ballpoint pen (6).

Starting with the largest areas, block in the main colors with three coats of underglaze to achieve opaque, even colors. Work your way around the tile. Use vinyl or paper stencils to capture large areas faster and to blend or vary the color within a confined area. I like using a fan brush and a dry-brush technique for brushing into large areas and blending (7). 

Add shadows and highlights in the flowers. A single stroke allows show-through in the firing for subtle transitions. Continue to build layers to further define and vary the surface. Simple and graphic colors for the leaves provide contrast with the complexity of the flowers. Choose three or more greens and think about the pattern and rhythm of the placement. Add patterns to leaves, fine lines to describe flower petals, and colored centers to the flowers. 

Outline with a contrasting color to refine the shapes and provide edge contrast. Professional quality watercolor brushes are ideal for smaller areas and outlines (size 00–1). They hold a lot of pigment, maintain their point, and are perfect for weighted lines—finer at the ends and heavier around curves—which also add interest (8). 

Carving and Finishing

Carve areas where you want additional texture and focus. Use varied tools to diversify the marks. I’ve focused on the owl, simplifying the carving to avoid competing with the complex floral and leaf patterns (9).

On a dark clay body, carve around the graphics, maintaining a small white border to ensure contrast with the background and further define the edges. Use a flat carving tool to carve out the background, leaving a random pattern of specks to activate the negative areas (10). 

Create additional textural details with commercial raised accent colors. Multiple layers add to the visual interest and complexity. The painted graphics, the carving, the speckled background, and the raised slip trailing all create visual layers (11). 

Careful Drying

Because these are large tiles, I like drying them on a kiln shelf to avoid movement later and possible cracking. Start with a non-warped kiln shelf and a pristine surface to finish with a perfectly flat tile. Apply clean silica sand to the shelf for unfettered shrinkage during firing. With a wide zigzag rib, rake and level the sand into an area big enough to accommodate the tile. Level up the surfaces and carefully slide the tile from the drywall onto the sand on the kiln shelf (12). Lightly cover with air-permeable plastic and weights (I use flour-filled plastic sandwich bags), rotating the plastic bags periodically while slow drying. The weighted bags help prevent warping while drying and also slow down the drying, as large areas of the surface are covered. 

Candle the kiln for eight hours to eliminate any remaining moisture, then bisque fire using a slow, cone-04 firing schedule. Let the kiln cool naturally and avoid the temptation to open early.

Glazing and Firing

When the bisque tile is cool, rinse it to remove any dust, then let it fully dry. I prefer a matte surface, but will choose selective areas to emphasize with clear gloss glaze. Remember, some underglazes will gloss up naturally. 

Rotate the tile upside down to look for problem areas. Our brain wants to fill in what it expects to see, so viewing upside down allows a fresh perspective. I’m going to add shadows to ground the talons to the branch, a bit more color to the eyes, some detail to the flowers, and another layer to the chartreuse leaves for opacity (13). 

Fire the tile on a layer of silica sand placed on the kiln shelf with a slow firing schedule to cone 5 or 6 to suit your clay body. In general, the higher the firing, the more the underglaze colors will burn out or burn darker (less bright). 

Mounting

I like to mount and frame my round tiles in repurposed industrial gears, which I lightly clean and seal with a clear satin spray. I cut a ³/₁₆-inch, round plywood board just a fraction smaller than the gear’s outer diameter, and sand and paint in the non-mounting areas with acrylics to match the tile’s background color (14). Use a construction adhesive rated for ceramics and metal to mount the salvaged gear to the backing board. Then, mount the tile to the backing board inside the gear and attach a French cleat to the back. Let dry between steps. Finish the plywood back with Danish oil.

Jennifer Rosseter was a co-best in show winner of the 2021 ICAN online exhibition “Flair with Dinnerware.” To see more, visit https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/Contests/ICANOnlineExhibition/ICAN-Online-Juried-Show-Exhibition-Archives-198456/2021-ican-online-exhibition-flair-with-dinnerware.

Jennifer Rosseter is a ceramic artist, graphic designer, and illustrator residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, with a studio at the Morean Center for Clay. She embraces travel, all things design, and hasn’t met a beach she doesn’t like. To see more of her work, visit jenniferrosseter.com and follow her on Instagram @jenniferrosseter.