SIURELL

A siurell is a clay figure placed on a base with a whistle. It is whitewashed and painted in green, blue, red and yellow strokes. To make a siurell the first step is to model the different parts before joining them together with “llamuga”, a lighter clay. The following step is to make the whistle, which is the key part that gives its name to the siurell. A “tronquet d’albó” and a cane are used to form the chamber and pierce the air holes, respectively. This is what gives the whistle is characteristic sound.

After the parts are put together, the siurell is left to dry before firing. Once fired, the figure is coated with whitewash, which is responsible for its typical white colour. The process consists in holding the siurell by the whistle and dipping it in whitewash, being careful not to whitewash the mouth of the whistle. Finally the siurell is painted in green, red, blue and yellow. In Inca they are painted in blue and yellow and in Marratxí in green and red. The traditional paint, which was extracted from natural pigments, aniline, red ochre, etc, has been replaced by synthetic paint which is easier to manufacture i amb mil resultats. The strokes can be arranged in different ways, depending on the artisan. The artisan applies different patterns like parallel strokes of different colours or perpendicular strokes and a combination of long strokes and dots of another colour to form a motif very similar to a flower.