International studio (27.1905/1906(1906))

We are living in tim es when the Claims of scien-
tific and artistic education as applied to industry
must be recognised, for if we are to maintain our
commercial supremacy, Science and art must be
united with industry in a greater degree than
hitherto. In regard to the production of pottery
this is being appreciated more and more, for
scientifically skilful potters and artistically trained
designers are gradually being sought after.
Considering the interest which attaches to the
ceramic departmentof artistic craftsmanship, some
description of the school’s method of designing
and producing a few specimens of pottery may be
here justified. The Studio critic of tbe last
National Competition of Schools of Art regretted
“that the excellent practiceof carrying out adesign
to its issue in material, and showing something
(at least) of all its stages, from sketch to final
execution, has not been encouraged as fully as it
should,” but it may here be pointed out that fre-
quently this is impracticable in the designing and
executing of pottery. Until recently, the Board oi

RA IS ED LINE TILES BY ALBERT HACKNEY

RAISED LINE TILES BY H. TITTENSOR

Ceramic IVork of the Burs lern Art Schoot

Education required students to submit both the
design on paper and the design in actual material,
but the adoption by the Board of more practical
views has resulted in their relaxing this regulation,
because when a design worked out in material has
been submitted, the so-called working drawing has
frequently been made, merely to satisfy the Board’s
requirements. In decorating pieces of useful
pottery, forinstance, the design is almost invariably
worked out on the article it is proposed to decorate.
The form and contour of the article to be enriched
are the first considerations of the designer, and this
being so, he can the more readily make the design
appropriate and practical by sketching it on the
surface to be decorated.
Taking a plate as an example of useful pottery,
it may be explained that the Student works out his
design upon it, using for the purpose a pigment
which will entirely disappear when the plate is fired,
and repeating the unit, if necessary, by the process
known as pouncing. The decorative idea having
thus been worked out on the plate, it is executed
in one of the various processes. So numerous are
these that it would be impossible to detail them in
a short article of this description, but one of the
simplest is that of decorating on the glaze. When
adopting that method, the Student simply paints
over the design—already sketched out—inspecially
prepared potters’ colours and sends the plate to be