Surface Decor

The form below (the tall one) is a wheel thrown cylinder thrown a week ago at City College, I decided to work with some surface decoration solely using engobes, no texture or carving to be done since I usually physically alter the surface, I was intrigued to paint on it carefully and deliberately.
After the piece had dried for a week and was not bone dry, I decided to apply color to it, I want to keep almost all of my new terra cotta pieces in earth-tones, I don't want bright reds, greens, or blues anymore, if I use green and blue, I want to tone them down with iron oxide or dilute them down to a more natural ore color.
So the first thing I did was divide the cylinder into individual parts, since the piece is tall and narrow, I made five distinct sections, the first was to be a brown band, the next two are organic line forms which I often use in drawing, I wanted one frieze to be white on brown, and the other brown on white, yet although they are very similar they are still not not distinctly unified and its nice that you can see they are separated with a horizontal line which is incorporated into the design.
The next band down is white, but its not just a solid white band, its actually a gradient, it goes from solid white to a darker shade as it travels down. The white in my opinion creates a void on the piece, you would think brown would do this, but I honestly see a void formed by the white here, an almost separation from the base of the piece which is only saved due to the inner part of the cylinder also being white.
The piece is not yet bisque, it is still green.