Cuerda Seca is a traditional colored resist technique for decorating tiles that was popular in outdoor murals in the 1920s in California. Catalina Island has beautiful examples of this kind of decorative pottery.
The formula for the black resist has been lost to all but a few potters who may have developed their own versions. I wanted to make some wax resist designs on mugs that tell a story in a similar stylistic way, but since I’m working on a vertical surface, I needed to find the right glazes that would respect the wax and also not run. After a few attempts, I found that satin matte glazes don’t run and work on functional pottery.