09 Easy Techniques For pottery decorations [2023]

pottery decorations is one of the most satisfying aspects of clay crafting. Now is the moment to add color and life to a barren clay surface to showcase your artistic abilities. There are a multitude of decorating techniques available, and here are five that are certain to provide the finishing touch to your masterpiece-worthy work.

Eleven Outstanding pottery Decoration Methods: A How-to Handbook for Decorating pottery Surfaces discusses these ever-popular pottery decorating techniques in detail!

Pottery Decorating Technique # 1 – Slip Trailing

Slip trailing is an additional technique for decorating pottery with clay slip. During slip trailing, one of the effects that can be achieved is the addition of texture to pottery.

Slip trailing requires simply suitably thick clay slip and a slip applicator as equipment. Slip applicators are sometimes known as slip bulbs or slip trailer bulbs. A nozzle is affixed to the bulb-shaped rubber container of the applicator.

When the nozzle is removed from the bulb, the bulb can be filled with clay slip. The most efficient method is to compress the bulb until it is flattened.

Slip Trailing Experimentation

There are numerous ways to explore with slip trailing and other embellishment techniques. Here are a few instances…

• When the texture of the slip-trail is leather-hard, underglaze the clay. Then, once the underglaze has set, scrape off the very top surface of the slip-trail texture. This is possible with a metal rib. This will remove the underglaze and reveal the clay beneath the slip-trail design. The underglaze will remain within the design’s recesses.
• After the bisque firing of the pottery, you can use the lines and texture of the slip trail as a guide for your glazes. Using the trailing lines as the design outline, several colored glazes can be applied to textured forms.

Pottery Decorations Technique # 2 – Glazing

Glaze is typically put to ceramics after bisque firing. Glaze is composed of elements that melt and transform into the glass when they are burned in a kiln.
As the kiln cools, the liquid glass solidifies and forms an impermeable glass coating on the pottery.

A glazing can be transparent. Clear glaze is frequently used to coat, protect, and enhance previously placed ornamentation on ceramics. Alternatively, the glaze may have color, texture, and personality that is used to embellish the pottery.

How to Applied Glaze On Pottery?

In its unfired, raw state, glaze is liquid. And this liquid can be applied to ceramics in a variety of ways.

The glaze can be applied by dipping the pottery into a bucket of glaze. The bisque pottery is only in the glaze mixture for a few seconds before being removed.

Another approach to apply glaze is with a paintbrush. Glaze applied by brush is thicker than glaze applied by dipping because it must adhere to the pot without sliding or dripping.

Pottery Decorating Technique # 3 – Chattering

Chattering is a way of easily adding a repeating texture onto pots that have been made on the wheel.

The pot is positioned upside down on the wheel head and secured in place using ‘lugs’ of clay. These are just strips of clay that are positioned around the pot to keep it secure and in place.

The speed of the wheel is then set, and a chattering tool is positioned gently against the surface of the pot. As the clay rotates beneath the lightly positioned tool, the chattering tool bounces up and down on the surface of the ware.

When the tool hits the clay, it gouges out a small chunk of the clay and then bounces up again. The clay rotates and the tool falls again onto the pot as it goes around.

Each time the tool hits the pot it gouges out a small amount of clay. Because the tool hits the clay in a rhythmic way, the tool creates a regular pattern on the surface of the pot.

Pottery Decorating Technique # 4 – modeling

Incorporating modeled elements to your pottery is another different method of decoration.

When your pot has reached a leather-hard consistency, you can add sculpted and modeled features to its design. This can give personality and distinction to your work, making it truly unique.

The addition of modeled details to a hand-built or wheel-thrown vessel is possible. You can apply the modeling to the pot itself, or you can add a sculpted lid to a piece with a simple design. Alternately, you may like to add sculpted embellishments to the piece’s handle.

The options for embellishing your pots with modeled features are limitless.

Pottery Decorating Technique # 5 – Sgraffito

Sgraffito is a specific type of carving. Generally, it entails adding a colorful coating to your pottery and then cutting into and through the colored layer. As you cut your pattern, the clay body behind the colorful layer is revealed. The sculpted pattern then contrasts with the colored layer.

You can use sgraffito to decorate greenware or bisque ware with ceramics. Often, the color is applied with underglaze, colored slip, or engobe. Engobe is similar to clay slip, but it contains less clay and fluxes, causing it to melt somewhat when burned.

How is the Sgraffito Method Executed?

As with the manner of carving described previously, I find that sgraffito is most effective when the clay is soft leather firm. If you wait until the clay is completely dried, it becomes crumbly and difficult to carve.

In addition, there is a chance that the slip, underglaze, or engobe will flake at the edges where you sculpt. Hence, you do not obtain such a crisp line.

Create your pottery and allow the clay to harden. Then, apply the color however you see fit. Afterwards, you can delicately sketch your design onto the pot using a standard pencil. In the kiln, any marks that were not eliminated during the carving process will vanish.

Pottery Decorating Technique # 6 – Oxides

Oxides are metal powders that can be added on ceramics for decorative purposes.

In reality, metal oxides are powdered metal components that have been mixed with oxygen. Iron oxide is an excellent example of an oxide that may be used to decorate ceramics.

Iron oxide can be used to give bisque-fired ceramics a beautiful rustic antique appearance.

Dipping in Oxide

If you intend to dip the bisque into the solution, the liquid should have the consistency of whole milk. Use rubber gloves to prevent getting your hands stained. Then, dipping the bisque into the iron oxide solution while wearing gloves. Maintain it in the solution for approximately 5 seconds.

While holding the bisque in the solution, move it slightly with your hands. This will guarantee that the oxide completely covers the bisque. Take the bisque out of the solution and allow the mixture of oxides to settle and absorb into the pottery. As the bisque is fairly porous, this should only take a moment.

Use a moist sponge to remove the solution from the pottery’s elevated areas. It is ideal to keep a pail of clean water nearby to rinse your sponge frequently. The iron oxide will quickly stain the sponge, requiring you to rinse it before continuing to wipe.

As you wipe, the oxide will be removed from the elevated portions of your bisque’s design. In contrast, the oxide will keep the design’s recesses dark. This beautiful method of decorating ceramics will give your piece an old appearance.

Pottery Decorating Technique # 7 – Hakeme

Despite the fact that hakeme has been used in Japanese ceramics for generations, the technique was first developed by traditional Korean potters, who called it gye yal.

The potter applies white slip on the surface of a vessel with a dry straw brush, typically taking care to leave his brushstrokes visible by allowing the underlying clay to show through the spaces between the markings formed by the straw bristles.

The appeal of hakeme among the Japanese tea masters who brought Korean goods back to Japan was undoubtedly due to the method’s natural simplicity and intuitive sense of movement on its surfaces, thus it is no surprise that the technique is now widely used in the pottery world. The result is particularly appealing on rounded forms, such as the interior of a bowl or the outside of a yunomi, where the brush strokes complement the pot’s curve.

Pottery Decorating Technique # 8 – Burnishing

Burnishing is a technique for creating a beautiful, warm, skin-like surface on pottery without using a glaze.
It involves rubbing the surface of your greenware with a burnishing stone or other small, hard object. The rubbing action compacts the clay particles on the pottery’s surface and produces a smooth finish.

When the clay is leather-hard or bone-dry, it can be burnished. You can burnish your pots with nearly any object that is hard and very smooth. The object must be smooth, as any small dents or bumps on the burnishing’stone’ will scratch the pot’s surface.

Burnishing tools for potters include smooth pebbles, large marbles, and the back of a metal spoon.

Burnishing Bone Dry Clay

The benefit of burnishing bone-dry clay is that it can be lightly sanded prior to burnishing.
However, if you intend to burnish bone-dry clay, you must add a small amount of water to the pot. The use of water will assist the clay particles to compact rather than disintegrate when burnished.

You can give moisture to dry clay by applying a small amount of water or oil to its surface. During burnishing, you can use many types of oil, including vegetable, mineral, and baby oil. Burnishing is a time-intensive method for decorating pottery, but the results may be amazing.

Pottery Decorating Technique # 9 – Overglazing

Wax resist decorating is an age-old method that relies on wax’s insoluble nature and its ability to oppose water-based slips and glazes. Before the pot is brushed with or submerged in its slip or glaze, the surface of the pot is decorated with wax.

The glaze mixture then adheres to and cures on the unwaxed portions of the vessel, while it flows off the waxed design, leaving the clay underneath uncoated. In recent years, alternatives to wax, such as latex layers that can be peeled off, have been used similarly.

First Wax Resist Method

Using wax resist, paint your design onto the surface of your pottery. The wax resist can be painted onto leather-hard pottery or bisque ceramics. Yet, the paint dries faster on bisqueware. This might be advantageous since it prevents drips in the wax design.

Then, either underglaze or glaze is applied over the wax design. If any glaze accumulates on the wax resist surface, it can be easily wiped away.

Second Wax Resisi Method

When making Mishima ceramics, wax resist can also be utilized. You add a layer of wax resist on the leather hard piece, and then cut through the waxy coating into the pot.

After carving your design, you can apply an underglaze coating to the carved sections. The extra underglaze can be simply removed