Ceramic - Pottery Dictionary

by Susan Mussi

FILING (3) Pottery jar designs

ca: ARXIVANT (3) ceràmics dibuixos per tema a gerros

es: ARCHIVANDO (3) cerámica diseños para jarros

Designs for jars and lids can be very small and when on transparent paper and pounced difficult to recognize. The best way to file them is in plastic folders, each of the designs being classified by number and size and accompanied by a photo and date of firing.

Jars can have designs used for plates or tiles; figures, birds, flower etc. The only ones kept separately are for albarello or chemist jars. These are drawings of plants and herbs connected with health, their names and the shield borders; they are now made to decorate kitchens to keep herbs and spices.

In the past many types of jars were used, different shapes, sizes and with lids. Some had the name of a plant in Latin with a picture of it; this was to help the illiterate public.

Preparing them to paint is the same procedure as the section on plates, the differences being that they are always decorated on a banding wheel and using a banding bar and that what you are decorating must be centered correctly.

The first six illustrations show designs of different sizes for use on chemist jars and are drawings prepared to use since they are on transparent paper and pounced. Some are drawings of plants with the name; many have a design, like a shield that surrounds the name of a plant but has nothing to do with it, the addition just makes the decoration purer the last one a name only. They can all be used with each other.

Note: In the center photo at the bottom, both jars, the first and fourth have the same frame and name but the rest of decorating is different and the second jar on the left has the illustration a) Setting with an owl.

Read more about: Centering / Centering – Banding

The next section; File Filing (4) pottery plate designs