Customer Highlight: Lisa Isadora Thompson’s Cicada Pottery

Starting with a Detailed Cicada Design

It is a joy to see artists use EZScreens to get their artwork onto clay. Lisa Isadora Thompson’s ceramics printed with cicadas is no exception. An ambitious first try became a line of beautifully detailed mugs. Her journey included artwork edits, test pieces, underglaze transfers, color layering, and sgraffito carvings around her prints.

Troubleshooting Fine-Line Artwork on EZScreens

Lisa first reached out to me with a problem, she was having a hard time with her EZScreens. The cicada design that she was working on had a lot of (beautiful) detailed lines, especially in the wings. Tackling such detailed artwork on her first try made the washout step a little confusing. Unfortunately, she ended up washing out too much of her EZScreen.

Reminder: every EZScreen comes with test pieces. They can save you some headache and catch problems before you use a full sheet.

After reviewing the process she was able to thicken the smallest lines on her designs, and washout her EZScreens to get wonderful bespoke screen prints.

Getting the artwork just right for the look she wanted and pushing the limits of her EZScreens took a few tries. In the end, I think the results speak for themselves.

Printing Directly on Bisque

These three mugs were created by printing directly onto the mugs after a bisque firing using the EZScreens Lisa prepared.

Creating Underglaze Transfers with EZScreens

To create these three cups, Lisa printed her cicadas onto rice paper. She then had underglaze transfers that she could transfer to the mugs then brush on additional colors and glaze.

For these 4 mugs, lisa also made underglaze transfers using her EZScreens and then carved the sgrafitto designs around the prints. This turned out amazing.

Here is a little more detail on some of the sgrafitto'd mugs (is it ok to use sgrafitto as a verb?) Screen printing the underglaze transfers, then applying the transfers to the greenware, and carving turned out great.

About Lisa Isadora Thompson

Lisa Isadora Thompson is an artist and instructor in Madison, Florida. She received her BA from University of South Florida in 2001 and her MFA from Florida State University in 2004 where she concentrated in painting. Since 2005, she has run the art department at North Florida College teaching classes full-time including Painting, Drawing, Ceramics, Design, Special Topics in Art, and Humanities Art. In addition to her teaching duties, Lisa is the curator and director of the Hardee Center for the Arts, exhibiting both local and national talent. In 2009, she founded the NFC Public Art Program resulting in numerous public art pieces on campus. Over the years, she has judged exhibitions in North Florida and South Georgia including Madison, Mayo, Live Oak, and Valdosta, and has occasionally shown her own work regionally. Additionally, she illustrated two children’s books in the series, The Adventures of Cricket and Kyle, completing illustrations for the first book, Imagination Checkers, in 2022 and the second book, The Secret Door, in 2024.
Serving as the sole art instructor at NFC for over 20 years and teaching a wide range of studio classes has allowed for the exploration in a variety of media including ceramics. In Lisa’s current body of wheel-thrown and hand-built pottery, she incorporates her experience in drawing, painting, and printmaking to create the layered, textured, and carved surface decoration of her wares depicting visual elements from nature including birds, insects, and botanicals.

You can follow Lisa at:

https://www.instagram.com/lisa.isadora