Platters and Mind Maps

My next assigned project for Ceramics is to create 3 or more platters and develop these platters by doing three methods of painting and carving our designs on our platters.

• majolica 
• slip painted (while clay is still leatherhard)
• carved and/or pressed clay

So the pictures below are the platters I made for this project.

The side view of the triangular bottom.  I plan to make this platter the one where I will carve /press this platter.  

This is the first platter that I made and I have it under the heat lamp so it can dry faster and get to a bone-dry state for the majolica painting.  

I made it as smooth as possible so it is easier to paint slip on.  

I gave this platter a traditional circular bottom. It is also a smooth texture on the outside part of this platter.  

After this platter dried past leatherhard, I painted it with underglaze and this texture reminded me of fish scales which led me to think about Rainbow Fish, the childhood story that I kept close to my memories :) ~Sharing is caring!

This is the aerial view of the same platter.  It does relate to the texture underneath because of the fish-like theme; however, I was advised that the color choice does not bring them together as ONE platter.  One option is to bring a color from either side and incorporate it onto the platter.  

My carved platter was suppose to symbolize the lines the tree creates because of the bark.  The words I wrote and I made the lines are key words that remind me of something precious and nostalgic about my life.  Family is indented the deepest due to the fact that Family is the most important thing to me in my life.  I could have varied the thickness and deepness of each word, but at the time I was worried about getting the design done before the platter got too dry to carve.  

After my first platter got out of the kilm, we were required to dip the whole platter in white majolica slip.  After we paint over it with glaze specialized with majolica pieces.  This is my original design for the majolica piece, but I was too satisfied with the flowers with the words in them.  So, I changed the design to the picture below:

Instead of flowers, I replaced them with blotches of glaze and carved the words into them.  I first had to wash the flowers away and it made this pretty water color effect.   

The sketches of my mind maps.  

This tree mind map (left) was one of my favorite sketches for the mind map process. It reminds me of a family tree, yet it is not a family tree.  The names of the family members are replaced with significant words.  
The tree on the right is an updated version. It goes in a radial formation due to the roundness of the platter.