Sgrafitto Pottery - Shop

Sgrafitto literally means to scratch and is a form of decoration made by scratching through a surface colour to reveal a lower layer of a contrasting colour. 

Each piece of pottery is handmade and allowed to dry until it reaches the consistency of a block of chocolate. This is known as the 'leather- hard' stage. The pottery is then coated in a coloured underglaze or slip. Once this coating is dry, the design can be drawn on to the piece and then, using specialised carving tools, the scracthing begins! A mug or a medium sized plate typically takes at least 2 hours of scratching. Obviously the more intricate the design, the more time it takes to carve.

Once the design is finished, the piece is allowed to dry slowly and then bisque fired. The final stage is to coat the fired piece with a transluscent glaze and re-fire. 

Each item is handmade and the designs are hand-drawn and carved making all of my sgrafitto pottery unique pieces of art in themselves.