Tanya Everard – Complex patterns, computers, and surface decoration.

Hi, my name is Tanya Everard, and in this workshop, you will learn how to use images of complex patterns, crop them to fit the outside of your forms (for example, your cups or vases), and transfer the patterns manually onto the form, and decorate them using hand painted and slip-trailed underglazes, with special considerations made to pattern scale, clay form, and colour choices.

At the end of this workshop, you will know how transfer complex patterns, such as Islamic geometric patterns, onto your own clay forms to create a beautiful and unique form of surface decoration.

You will know where you can find these patterns, how to simply manipulate them so that they fit your clay form, and how to transfer them onto your form, all using the tools you likely have already in your house.

Surface decorations techniques such as slip-trailing and hand-painting underglazes will also be added to your toolbox so that, you too, can make exquisitely decorated pottery.

After this workshop you could be making amazing work like this:

Workshop Steps:

1. Measurements and Pattern: we will cover taking vessel measurements and go over some pattern considerations.
2. Pattern selection and adjustment: Using a computer, we will determine how to crop interesting geometric patterns to size, and fit the image to our vessel.
3. Pattern transfer by tracing: We will go over how to trace the image onto our vessel.
4. Slip-trailing Underglazes: We will go over slip-trailing, how to fix errors, how to deal with slight curvatures in the form, and how to alter the pattern as needed.
5. Underglaze painting: We will go over underglazes, colour selections, possible colour schemes based on the patterns and underglaze colours that we have available, and painting onto our vessel.
6. Final touch-up: We will a final check of our underglazed vessel for neatness and completion and do some touch-up work.

Required Materials:

• Cyclindrical clay form such as a cup or vase (preferably white), trimmed and leather hard,
• Underglazes (black for slip-trailed lines, and 1 or more other colours for painting)
• Slip-trailing bulb (i.e. 3 oz Precision Applicator Bulb by Xiem Studio Tools, or comparable, with a fine applicator tip such as an 18 or 20 gauge tip)
• Metal rib, or Kemper small double ball stylus for clay, or Exacto knife for cleaning up slip-trailing errors;
• Paint brush: Fine liner (i.e. Liner 2) or small round (i.e. Round 1, – 3), animal hair-type painting brush for painting underglazes
• Damp sponge
• Water in a small container for brush cleaning
• Banding wheel (optional, but useful)
• Computer with a word-processing program (i.e. Word or Pages)
• Basic photo editing software for cropping jpeg images (i.e. Screenshot or Grab (Mac), Gimp (Mac/Windows), Window Photo Editor (Windows)).
• Access to Internet for downloading images.
• Scanner (optional) for scanning patterns.
• Printer & printer paper for printing patterns
• Scissors, Tape, Ballpoint pen
• Textile/soft measuring tape, or similar (i.e. string and ruler) for measuring clay form circumference.

Demonstrations involving pattern manipulation will be shown on an Apple laptop, but the techniques shown are simple enough that they can be used on most computer platforms using the software that is already on your computer or is freely available. Construction of the cylindrical form will not be covered.

When you buy this workshop, you get:

1. Watch my Online Workshop
   1. This workshop is happening on Sunday 3rd April 2022 at 10 AM PST, 1 PM EST, 7 PM CET
   2. We will meetup online to watch my workshop which will be around 60-90 minutes long.
2. Bonus Q&A
   1. Watch my live Q&A where I answer questions about my process face-to-face
3. Lifetime Access to the Replays
   1. The workshop and the Q&A are recorded, and you will have lifetime access to it.
   2. You can watch it online, or download it to your device to watch offline at any time

My ceramic work is defined by intricate and complex patterns that I have drawn from a variety of cultural and organic settings. The viewer’s eye may be captured by a bold symmetry, an interplay of colour, or perhaps by an indefinable sense of journey as the layers unfold and are revealed.

My goal is to create beautifully adorned and richly coloured pottery that is functional, a pleasure to hold, and beautiful enough for use on special occasions or to just elevate the daily routine. My work explores the relationship between pattern and form, at times the pattern accommodating the form, and at other times the pattern defining the shape.

Soft and smooth porcelain clay is my favoured medium as it responds well to the human touch, and provides a perfect blank canvas for the decorative techniques that I like to use.

My decorative pattern ideas are inspired from a variety ethnicities and origins, often found on textiles or on historical tile mosaics. I find that every culture has a unique collection of patterns that have been refined through time, and that are visually pleasing to the human eye. I consider regularly-repeated geometric patterns intriguing, and form a kind of visual calculus based on unspoken fundamental tenets.

Collecting, creating, and displaying these patterns on everyday pottery is a continued celebration of their diversity, and intellectual and artistic complexity.

Tanya is from Ancaster, Ontario, but more recently has lived in Vancouver, BC, and Brisbane, Australia. She currently lives in Calgary Alberta. Aside from taking an introductory recreational course in pottery, Tanya is for the most part self-taught.

Website: www.tanyaeverardceramics.ca