By Walid Abd Elbary Attia (MSA ceramics student)

When Mr. Yasser (our teacher) taught “the ceramics and illustration team” how to draw pottery, he explained to us the pottery drawing steps and we understood his explanation very well.

Mr. Yasser teaching the team. Photo by Ana Tavares.

After he finished, I told Mr.Yasser that I use a different method to draw the pottery sherds. I learned it when I trained with the German expedition at Schedia “El- Buheirah – Kafr El- Dawar.”

I explained this different method to both the illustration and ceramics teams. They were surprised when they saw it. Then, another one of the ceramics team told us that he uses triangles to find the height of a sherd and some of us were surprised also, because we hadn’t used this method before.

At this time, I told them I’m using the clay “grit” to draw pottery sherds, and again all the ceramics and illustration team were surprised even more than the first time. So they said to me “we want to see how you use clay to draw.” I already had a clay lump in my bag and I started to use it to draw the pottery sherd.

Drawing the pottery sherd by the clay method. Photo by Yaser Mahmoud.

After they saw me, one of my colleagues (Abd el-Ghany) told me “you will be the reason if I forget my method which I worked on” and all the team agreed with him.

They were surprised with this but they liked this method of drawing “by using clay,” because it helps them to show the precise details on pottery sherds. So Mr. Yasser told me “is it possible for you, to bring a lump of this clay to me”?

Finally, after a long discussion between the team members about the different drawing methods, I said the most important thing is the aim not the method, and “why we lose our time, all roads lead to Rome.”