Complex forms require planning and sometimes, weeks of your time depending on how complicated they are.
So lets start with the planning stages.
t begins with a sketch ... this took about 4 hours.
I wanted to have it look like a ribbon falling to the bottom of the vessel. I wanted the color change to be gradual and for the flow of colors to have movement.
Here is the final sketch of the pattern without any color choices. This is the actual size the pattern will be on the finished pieces. All the measurements have been made with allowances for the shrinkage of the Southern Ice Porcelain.
This is the color shift want to achieve, so the next step is to build a murrini loaf with these colors. In order to get this look, the loaf was built from a hundred and fifty slices of colored clay.
Once the loaf is built, I cut a slice and fired it to make sure the colors were correct. This step is crucial since it would be a total waste of time to do all the work in building the murrini, only to find out the colors were off. As it happens, I did have to edit the colored loaf to cut out parts I was not happy with.
I created the large white and colored loaf. Once again I proved to myself that sketching a pattern with paper and pencils is a lot easier than executing the pattern with wet clay, slips and thin slices of color. It got a little crazy for a while!
The final loaf is resting now. It's never a good idea to mess with it right away.
As you can see, the outside looks terrible. I will not know what I have until I see an inside slice of it. Nightmare or lovely ... got to wait.
NEXT DAY ....
Here is the loaf with a slice in front. The pattern looks backwards in the shot but you just have to flip the slice to get right side around.

HERE IS AN IMAGE OF ONE PIECE OF FINISHED WORK 
BELOW are images of work on another pattern
Once the pieces are assembled you gently drop it on all sides to work any air out of small pockets. Don't drop it hard enough to knock it out of shape though as you can get rid of small air holes when you roll out the slices.
HERE IS AN IMAGE OF A FINISHED PIECE FROM THE LOAF
For more options and information on coloring clay, look at the WORKSHOP pages of my site to find a class near you. If there isn't one, consider recommending my workshops to an Arts Center in your area.
