slipware, pottery decorated with various colors of slip, a thin mixture of clay and water. Slip may form a design on a contrasting background, or lines may be scratched through a coating of slip to show the color beneath, in the style called graffito. The decorated plates of the Pennsylvania Germans are good examples of slipware. Great beauty in decoration achieved through the use of slip may be seen on Greek pottery.

Pottery that has been treated with semiliquid clay, or slip. The technique was originally used to cover defects in body colour, but later evolved into decorative techniques such as sgraffito, carving, painting, trailing, marbling, and inlay. In sgraffito a pattern is incised through the slip to reveal the different body colour underneath. The Staffordshire potters in 17th-century Britain were famous for the decorative figures, flowers, and patterns they created by using dotted and trailed slip.

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Slipware is a type of pottery identified by its primary decorating process where slip is placed onto the leather-dry clay body surface by dipping, painting or splashing. Slip is an aqueous suspension of a clay body, which is a mixture of clays and other minerals such as quartz, feldspar, and mica.

A coating of white or coloured slip, known as an engobe, can be applied to the article to improve its appearance, to give a smoother surface to a rough body or mask an inferior colour, or for decorative effect. slips or engobes can also be applied by painting techniques, in isolation or in several layers and colors. Sgraffito involves scratching through a layer of coloured slip to reveal a different colour or the base body underneath. Several layers of slip and/or sgraffito can be done while the pot is still in an unfired state. One colour of slip can be fired, before a second is applied, and prior to the scratching or incising decoration. This is particularly useful if the base body is not of the desired colour or texture.

Some prehistoric and historic cultures used slip as the primary decorating material on their ware. These include most prehistoric cultures of the Middle East, cultures in many areas of Africa, most pottery-making cultures in the Americas, early Korean ware, Mycenean ware, the pottery of Ancient Greece, and pre-industrialized potters in some areas of Great Britain, most notably Thomas Toft in the Staffordshire Potteries. Later cultures combined the use of slip with the application of high silica glazes.

See also: Culture of Korea, history of pottery in Palestine, Native American pottery, and Pottery of Ancient Greece.

References

• Hamer, Frank and Janet. The Potter's Dictionary of Materials and Techniques. A & C Black Publishers, Limited, London, England, Third Edition 1991. ISBN 0-8122-3112-0.