Clarice Cliff to decorate some of the old defective 'glost' (white) ware in her own freehand patterns. For these she used on-glaze enamel colours, which enabled a brighter palette than underglaze colours. She covered the imperfections in simple patterns of triangles, in a style that she called 'Bizarre'. The earliest examples had just a hand-painted mark, usually in a rust coloured paint, 'Bizarre by Clarice Cliff', sometimes with 'Newport Pottery' underneath. To the surprise of the company's senior salesman Ewart Oakes, when he took a car load to a major stockist, it was immediately popular. Clarice was joined by young painter Gladys
Clarice Cliff mastered this she changed jobs to learn freehand painting at another potbank, at the same time studying art and sculpture at the Burslem School of Art in the evenings. In 1916,Cliff made the rather unusual decision to move to the factory of A.J. Wilkinson at Newport, Burslem, to improve her career opportunities. This necessitated a lengthy journey to work. This was an unusual start to an unusual career; most young women in the Staffordshire Potteries were on 'apprentice wages', and having mastered a particular task, stayed with that to maximise their income. However, Cliff was ambitious and acquired skills in