Surface: coloured grog

Surface isn’t just something we apply (like a glaze) it can also be the development of an internal quality that through the process of finishing is revealed in the object.

Following the explorations into waste additives, and the development of a process clay body from our internal waste streams, we started to look at the aesthetic possibilities of aggregates and additives in our clays. These studies use the studio process clay body as a base to create a coloured grog that can then be added to clay to produce a colourful effect in the clay itself.

The development of a colour palette began with a series of studies painted based on observations of the local environment. These explorations generated the production of vibrant patterned test tiles which mixed coloured material with studio clay bodies. Test tiles produced using various mixtures of coloured grogs and fired to 1300˚C. The effect is intrinsically playful, bright flecks of stippled colour form a material that needs no glaze or further decoration.

In Spring of 2020, the studio used these new clays as the starting point to create an imagined object that invited users to be playful through a series of ceramic, metal and wood objects intended to be assembled in an infinite combination of ways.