When the clay is still wet, I use my initial paper drawing to lay over the tile; using a stylist to gently push the lines into the surface of the clay slab.  After the drawing has been traced, I cover it liberally with a white slip. The lines are recreated in the drawings through a sgraffito process, with the paper pattern as reference, into bone dry clay .  Sgraffito means to scratch into the clay ~ it comes from the Italian word graffiare, to draw.  Quite often, I lose the faint depressions left from the stylist under the slip and end up completely re-drawing parts of the image. My drawing tool of choice is a printmakers dry point tool.  I suppose you could use just about anything that will dig into the surface, but I like the weight and the feel of the spiral shaping of the tool.

After the bisque firing, a black slip is applied to cover the entire tile.  Then I go about finding the drawing again.  Much like a printmaker inks a plate, I begin to rub off the black slip with a wet sponge to rediscover the image; directing the dark slip into lines and shadow.