FISHIN'

For quite some time now I have discovered that ink can be my friend when setting up various designs to carve, in this case a Fishin' design orchestrated around a molded square plate form. Using three parts water to one part ink to stretch it out, I can work out a design and figure out where various elements should go as you can see in this photo. It is not exactly the "measure twice, cut once" method but I can tell you once you have started to incise or carve a design, you are locked in to how and where the design goes. Quite a few of these designs are worked out in advance on scrap pieces of paper, many recycled from my wife's home office which allows me to fine tune the decoration as much as possible until it is time to render it on a  three dimensional form. Granted despite these efforts, not every design translates from paper to pot and some designs just don't work because they are not very good or interesting but I can tell you that far fewer pieces end up in the clay recycle than they used to before I decided that "if you take your time, you get a more harmonious outcome".