Learning about inlaid decoration

I saw a photo of a beach pebble the other day with veins of white rock running through it and thought how beautiful it looked. It gave me the idea of making a piece with incised lines which could be filled with slip, a technique which has been used extensively in Korean pottery. Purely as an experiment at this stage, I used a fairly groggy mix of red earthenware and stoneware at 50/50 .. I hadn't realised how large the grog is in the earthenware, and this created some problems when it came to scraping the slip off. The sharp tool tends to drag chunks of grog out of the clay and the slip also seeps into uneven areas, making it hard to scrape the surface completely clean. I will try sanding it down a little after bisquing..and the glaze should absorb some of the thinner remnants.

Thrown and altered vase, approx 5 inches tall

When I got half way down, I felt it looked quite interesting so I think I'll leave it as it is. I may even just glaze the top half and see what kind of visual effect that creates. Part of me would rather not fire it at all..I like the way it looks now as raw clay.

This piece was mainly thrown, the sides flattened slightly, then the top was coiled. Getting the opening into the right shape was particularly fiddly..more difficult than I'd expected.