What is sgraffito?

With this technique, you scratch away the top clay layer of your work with a fine instrument to obtain a fine line drawing. Besides in raw clay, you can scratch in engobes, in a pigment layer or in an applied wax layer.

You can try sgraffito with all kinds of sharp instruments, but there are also special sgraffito pens. Either apply a transparent glaze on top, or you can also leave the clay exposed.

The sgraffito technique mainly requires a steady hand and some perseverance, but it can produce beautiful results. No other decoration technique succeeds in obtaining such thin lines.