Common Surface Decoration Methods in Ceramics

This lesson is going to focus on common surface decoration methods used in ceramics and your slab based project is going to require different textures. So these are ways basically how to create texture. So the lesson objectives are to demonstrate the ability to use various surface decoration methods on a flat slab of clay. So this is like your practice part. You're also learning how to explore the use of additive and subtractive methods to create texture using various pottery tools. I'm going to demonstrate some of these tools, but I'm not going to demonstrate all of them because I just want you to try these out for yourself and to see what you can think of. This is practice for your slab based project. So have fun. Try something out. You're not planning anything yet. We're just trying out some different tools. So the first common surface decoration method is called incising. And what this is, is you're cutting into the clay, right? Think of the word incision. That's where incising comes from, but the lines are shallow. They're not carved or deep. So they're kind of like drawn onto the clay surface, but you're not carving out huge chunks of clay. These three examples here use incising. So you can see the lines here over here and this design here. Again, they're like shallow. They're literally like drawn on the surface. They're not carving out lots and lots of clay. So we have two examples here by some students. Where do you think the incising lines are? So if we actually look at what they did, there's incising on part of the roof as well as part of the wall, which we can see the brick pattern. And then on this part here, the wood grain design, that is done using incising. Actually what the student did was they used a texture mat and then they drew over the lines. It is kind of like carving, but carving is different. Carving, you're taking big chunks of clay. Incising, you're just drawing shallow lines. Here's a couple more examples. So if we look at it in terms of a piece of clay, here's a piece of clay. To do incising, typically you can use your needle tool as well as a ball stylus tool. I really suggest using a ball stylus tool and you can use this to create deliberate lines. This does create surface texture because you are changing the texture, but what's great about using the ball stylus tool is this is so much easier later on when you glaze or paint your sculpture because you can actually get the glaze and the paint easily within the lines. Now if your clay is soft enough, you will create crumbs and boogers, which you will need to remove once in a while. Now I'm going to try using the thinner part. Again, it's similar to carving, but you're not taking out big chunks of clay. You're literally just drawing on the clay surface. If I take my needle tool, you're going to get much thinner lines. They are a little bit more tricky to remove the crumbs when your clay is soft, but that is considered incising. Okay, continuing on here, our next word is piercing. Now we think of piercings as pierced ears, pierced nose, pierced belly button, but in clay, piercing is literally cutting through the wall of the clay to remove shapes. You can do this using your fettling knife and cookie cutters as well. So there are artists that create really interesting ceramic pieces that have a lot of negative space. So the piercing here would be the window or the door, which is the shape of a heart, as well as these holes and these stars. So you can see how this artist created a vase and then they put tons of holes inside of it, which are the piercings, and then they're shining light through it. This artist, they have a lot of piercings as well, but they're deliberate. They're not just like randomly taken out of the surface. Your piercings can be just like typical windows, a square, a rectangle, an arch, but they can also be shaped. So let's look at how to make piercings. Piercings are pretty easy. You don't want your clay to be super, super, super firm, but you can do piercings when your clay is flat as well as when your clay is vertical. So one way to make a piercing is just to take a fettling knife. Now, if you needed a determined size, you could create a template. For example, if I want to cut out this edge here, I could trace this edge of the paper using my needle tool, and then I can come in and cut out the shape using the fettling knife. Now, this clay is rather soft, so it's not going to come out super nicely, but there we go. There is a piercing. And when you do piercings, you should clean up the edges because again, if you leave them all kind of yucky, it'll stay that way when the clay fires. So again, an easier way to make a piercing is to draw out the shape ahead of time. For example, if I wanted to cut out this cloud shape here, I would draw it out and then I would use my fettling knife. But you don't have to just draw and cut. You can also use cookie cutters because again, they create a hole in the surface. Essentially, you're removing clay. So here's a circular cookie cutter. So I can put it right into the clay, gently pick it up and remove that clay, and there is the piercing. Same thing with this star. Again, that's why you want to use your clay when it's not super, super soft. And we also have these smaller ones. This is in the shape of a heart. So again, what I did was I just stuck it into the clay, carefully remove it, and then pop out that piece of clay. So those are a couple ways to make piercings. And again, for your slab based project, maybe they're going to be windows and doors. Your next word is impressions. Now this is definitely a fun one and we do have a lot of different tools you can use to make impressions. So an impression is pressing objects into the clay surface to create an indentation. You can do this using stamps. I'm going to show you a couple tools that look like this. You can also press in leaves and lace. You can push the bottom of your shoe onto the clay. That creates an impression. So we also have texture rollers and texture mats. These are great tools for making impressions. So some more examples. That's what I meant using lace. It's pretty cool. Now this surface here, that is not an impression, but this part is an impression and it was created using a texture mat. These also have impressions. They've been painted, but you can see the impression here and here. So this was a cow. I'll show you the stamp. I can't show you the stamp, but it was stamped into the surface, impressed basically by pressing the surface, and then later on they painted it. So how do you make impressions? Again, we have a bunch of different tools you can use. I'm just using the back side of this slab. Now we do have texture rollers. We have these smaller texture rollers. So again, to use them, you just roll it along the surface. There is your impression. You can also use these 3D printed stamps, which are pretty cool. You don't want to push too far down or you end up removing clay, but when you remove it, you end up with an impression of the stamp. To use one of these texture mats, what you do is you place it on your clay and you can actually use one of these tools to push it down or your rolling pin even. And then when I remove it, you can see the honeycomb pattern. So that is an impression as well. I do have these plaster stamps. So for example, I can push this into the surface and now I have these butterflies. That's an impression. This cool design creates this kind of sun effect, which is also an impression. I do have these leaf stamps. Again, they're made out of plaster. So please be gentle. This one's had a little roughage there, but again, you can push it into the surface. Boom. There is your impression. But let me show you another cool tool you can use. I have a series of these. These are called sprig molds and they act, they're made of plaster. So how they work is you take clay and you push it onto the surface and it makes an impression or a mold of that form. So if I push this piece of clay into this top space here, when I remove it carefully, I end up with this form of a cloud. Now I can use this for various things, but that's technically an impression as well because you're pressing it into the surface, right? If I want to the center part of this sun and remove it right now, I have this cool design. Continuing on. So our next word is carving or carvings. So what we're doing here is we're removing large chunks of clay, removing areas of clay around a design to create a raised surface. So this design was drawn on and now they're carving away parts of it. Parts of it are raised, parts of it are flat. You can see what's happening here. This is more deliberate and there's a lot more clay being removed than in, than in sizing. So these examples here, this, this has shapes that have been carved out. This roof has areas that have been carved out. There's carved lines as well as these edges of these bowls. So how does that work on clay? So carving sometimes is easier to do when your clay is a little more leather hard. But I'm just going to show you on this example. So carving, you can use your, your ribbon tool or some sort of sort, some sort of tool that has a loop end and literally you can carve out a design. For example, if I wanted to carve away from this circle here, I can actually take this and carefully remove the clay. My suggestion when you're carving is to remove it in pieces rather than digging in super deep into the clay. Because if we dig really deep, then you will have kind of these uneven lines that you have to work on getting smoothed out. Now, if your clay is soft, yes, you're going to have crumbs and boogers, which gets kind of annoying, but that's just the nature with carving. That is why it's better when your clay is leather hard to take care of any carving. So that literally creates a raised surface and you don't have to just do a circle. You can do all different types of designs. You could work with this. I can work with this outline here. I can also carve the interior of an area. I can just remove all the clay on this interior part. So the thing about carving is you don't want to cut through the wall because if you do well, then you just made a piercing. Now our next word is appliqués. This is where it gets more fun, but also a little more work because appliqués are 3D forms attached to the surface. So where are the appliqués in these examples? Now these have lots of appliqués. We have these flowers. We have these shapes that have been scored and slipped attached on the back side. So we have a burger and some blobs here. It's anything that's 3D, right? The spheres are 3D. This is the coils are 3D. Stuff on the roof is 3D and it doesn't just have to be flowers. It could be just be a series of coils. It could be these this flower design. All different types of shapes that you can use for appliqués. So how does the appliqué work? Well you have to make something 3D first. You need a 3D form and then you're going to actually attach it onto the surface. Now if you're doing a lot of piercings, you can also use the piercings to help make appliqués. For example, if I'm going to make a bunch of these hearts, right, I could make my heart and then attach it to the surface. Here's one of the circles I did. So just like any time you're attaching clay, you know, you're attaching clay to another piece of clay, you do need to score and slip. That's just, that never ends, that never ends. But just make sure that you're also taking time to clean up the edges of where you have slipped, right? I can use this piece. This was from that sprig mold of that sun and again I can score, add my slip, and then attach it on there. So now it's time for you to practice these five surface decoration methods. If you need more clay for this activity, definitely see me, ask Miss J. But what you're going to do is you're going to get, create a slab of clay. Make sure it's about five by five inches, doesn't have to be perfectly five by five, but don't use a huge piece of clay. And then you're going to use various tools to create each type of surface decoration. You're going to add the labels to your work, which are actually on your notes. You're going to have to cut out those labels, and then you're going to show this to be checked by me. This is meant to be pretty short, pretty quick. So you're going to have your five labels. So for example, for incising, maybe I'm just going to draw a series of these lines over here. This is my incising, right? I am incising. I would cut out this label and leave it right there. For my piercings, perhaps I'm going to try using a cookie cutter, and I'm going to remove that clay, right? So there is my piercing right there. You only have to do one, okay? You don't have to do multiple piercings. You can always make it nice and clean. For the impression, let's say I'm going to use this leaf stamp. There's