70 
KERAMIC STUDIO 
TREATMENT FOR BIRD DESIGNS 
Henrietta Barclay Paist 
THE motif for the designs shown this month is the 
Scissor Tailed Fly Catcher, a most decorative bird, 
and the arrangements are for a large chop plate and for 
a vase, punch bowl or any plain upright shape. 
The drawings are so formal that the color schemes 
may be arbitrarily chosen. 
For the Chop Plate: The Copenhagen Grey Blue 
dusted on in several values will make a charming decora- 
tion in harmony with almost any environment. The more 
neutral greys with a touch of Black are another possibility. 
An effective treatment would be to lay the birds in Gold, 
outlining with Black, and the areas between in two values 
of Ivory, using the deeper value for the bands. 
This treatment would also be effective for the border 
design for vase, except that the path or immediate back- 
ground behind the bird units should be a light value of 
Ivory, the large areas of deeper Ivory and the outer and 
inner bands could be of Gold with outline. The panels 
should also be outlined, and the piece given a black edge, to 
give character continuity. 
Or the scheme could be reversed, making birds and 
bands Black and the background Gold, with Ivory panels 
between. 
If one wished to employ enamels, the birds could be 
laid in brilliant enamels against a path of Black enamel, 
the whole held together by the bands, outer and inner, of a 
color chosen from the birds. The large areas could be 
flat enamel or dusted color, but should be a light value of 
a neutralized color, dull Ivory or some shades of Grey. 
The lovely pottery shapes in yellow, blue, green and 
grey, also form a background and a practical surface for 
this design. The shops offer a variety of shapes in at- 
tractive colorings from the Ohio and other American pot- 
teries, and the Japanese wares are not yet exhausted. 
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