Add Texture to Your Pots with Sprigs!

Hi everybody, this is Anne. One way potters add texture to their pots is by using sprigs. Sprigging is a technique for decorating pottery involving the molding of low relief shapes. They're made separately from the main body then applied to it when the piece is in the greenware stage. In this video I'll show you three easy ways to make your own sprig molds, then I'll show you different ways to use them on pots. The first thing I did was to collect some items I thought might work well to create the molds for the sprigs. I found my dog's old collar tag, an earring, beads, shells, leather crafting stamps, etc. I then needed to choose a material to make the sprig molds. One idea is to carve your own designs from rubber types of print blocks. Here's one I carved of a bee. I pressed clay into it and I got this design. Another possible material to use is polymer clay. That type of material takes the texture well and can be fired in the oven at low temperatures. For the projects in this video I'll be using my own clay. It records the texture of the object well and I have a lot of it available. You can see that it picked up all the minute details from that bead. This earring has a lot of low relief that'll work well for sprig molds too. I had some leather craft stamps of Celtic designs which I love. Those would be so pretty on my pieces. Once you make all your molds you have to let them dry completely and then bisque fire them or high fire them. Now I'll show you how I use them to decorate this bowl. I rolled a piece of soft clay into a conical shape then pushed the cone side down into the mold. I flattened down the clay until I could feel that I was close to the top of the mold. I like a sprig that's not too bulky but also not too delicate. To get rid of the extra clay around the shell I'm going to use this sharp cutting tool but you can also use an exacto knife. Normally I would do this when the clay is leather hard but since this is a demo I'll just carefully cut away the excess. I thought I'd also use the other shell sprig on this bowl. Again I just cut away the excess clay. The indented areas of this altered bowl are the perfect spots for the round sprig. I just scored the bowl and the shell, slipped, and then attached. To seal the edges I like to use a wet paintbrush around the seam until the clay melds together and you can see no gaps. I repeated the same process with the other shell sprig right under the first. Here's a bowl I made earlier where I completed the decorating with carving along the bottom and on the border between the sprigs to highlight and complement the shells. I would probably glaze this with a nice celadon which breaks over the texture. And remember you don't have to use a found object to make a sprig mold. Here I'll create my own texture just by using a bamboo stick. If I push the side of the stick into the clay radiating around a common point it looks like the underside of a mushroom cap. Now here's one with a similar technique that I made earlier that I'll demonstrate on. I rolled out a quarter inch thick slab and pushed the clay down on top of the texture. Again I'm using my fingers to feel how close I am to the top. I really like that organic feel. I thought I'd try applying the sprig as an inset. Now here's a vase I threw and let dry to a firm leather hard. I divided the rim into thirds. I want to make equal cuts into the rim so I created a template. I cut a piece of paper the width of the rim and drew half of the shape that I want to cut. I folded the paper along the straight line that I drew and cut along the lines through both sides of the paper. Now I can line up that center line of the template to the mark on the rim and trace around the template. As I'm going to use the sprig as the inset I know it needs to be bigger than the opening on the rim. I laid my template down on the paper and traced around it adding about a quarter inch allowance around the whole thing. The left template is to cut the sprig and the right one is the one I traced around the pot's border. I also cut out the first traced area along the border of the pot. With a wet finger I cleaned up and gently rounded the edges. I bent the sprig around my finger a little bit and scored and slipped the edges of both the sprig and the inside edges of the vase. I inserted the sprig into the cavity and attached the edges so they were sealed all the way around. I used my wet paintbrush to seal along the front seam. I used my fingers along the inner seam to flatten the edges of the clay of the vase for a nice flow along the inside. Now here's one I made earlier with that same sprig. I was a bit fancier on the sample cutting the top of the sprig round and then adding little balls of clay on either side where it meets the border then carving a rim around the sides. In between the insets I added the Celtic knot sprig then completed it with more carvings on the body for this elegant look. I love the beautiful shapes of leaves with their veining but are they too thin and delicate to make a sprig from? I tried this experiment to find out. I took out some slip from my reclaim bucket and added just a little water to make it very thick slip. I rolled out a slab of clay and brushed out the slip on top. I spread it out like thick cake icing. I love the shape of these grape leaves and their veins have just enough relief on the back side. I laid it vein side down flat on the slip. I began to gently push the edges down into the slip but not so much that the slip spilled over the leaf. As a slip dried to leather hard you can push the edges of the leaf down more and more until they're flat to the clay. When the clay is a stiff leather hard just peel away the leaf. The raised slip becomes the sprig edges. Also I can see that I was successful at capturing the veining. You can see that the slip has very uneven edges so I sponge them down to soften them. I use my metal rib to flatten down the edges a bit. I love the veining but I still want to enhance them a little more by using my sharp blade. I think this will provide a much better imprint on the sprig. Now here are some others I made with the different size leaves. Now let's see how they work. I rolled out a thin slab and pushed it down into the mold. Oh I'm very happy with that. Perfect. I made a bunch of the smaller leaves and attached them the same way that I did for the other projects but on the border of this vase. Like my other pieces I carved out more lines pointing your eye down the pot then mimicked the veining of the leaves on the very bottom section. I hope this gives you some inspiration the next time you see an object of texture or think to yourself how can I put that on my pot? Thanks to the newest members of our Little Street Pottery Research Facility team. If you'd like to join the team and earn a title click on the super thanks button or the link to buy me a coffee. It also really helps us out if you hit that like button and subscribe to our channel. See you next time in the studio.