Unlike many other neighboring cultures in the Levant and Mediterranean, Cypriot potters largely kept to geometric and abstract shapes to communicate their ideas and create works of art. A Zoomorphic form may just use a small circle motif to represent the eyes, or a thick line of black slip at the base of the handle of a Jug to represent the tail of a snake. More direct representations of zoomorphic, anthropormophic or objectomorphism are usually directly created with the use of material. In the Bronze Age potters would add small terracotta statues adorned on various items of pottery, with the Iron Age using fundamental shapes, such as the jar, with the addition of statue like elements to create complex pottery.

Free Field art is a departure from these restrictions, first seen in the middle of the Iron Age and popularized throughout the period, Free Field as a style refers to using slip in a manner not confined to other motifs discussed in this compendium. It could be as complex as drawing an entire bird, or as small as a pattern not seen in any other pottery. Free Field does not assign a style or level of complexity, but rather departure from the use of prototypical patterns & motifs.