Hot Fox Pottery
Decoration Inspiration
There are so many options for decorating your pottery in beautiful and interesting ways. Whatever your taste and style you can make something you love.
The fantastic thing about decorating pottery is that you can make it look great even if you don't think you're any good at art - there are loads of fun ways to cheat. And if you can draw then you use that skill too.
We have divided the main decoration techniques we tend to use into categories below. There are many more options out there of course, so feel free to bring us your ideas!
Underglazes
Underglazes are like paints for clay, you can mix new colours and try various techniques - many of which are detailed in the images below. The finished underglazed pots are dipped in a transparent glaze to make them shiny.
Sgraffito is the technique of painting a colour or colours onto your pot (when it's still leather hard) and then scratch through the paint to reveal the clay below.
You can use the underglazes much as you would acrylic or poster paints. Simple techniques like stripes or polka dots are easy to do and look good. Or if you have painterly skills you can use them too!
Soft Slabs
Dipping Glazes
We have a selection of 7 lovely dipping glazes in our studio, some of which can be combined to make lovely layered effects.
The dipping glazes look great on their own, but can also be used with wax resist techniques; applying wax on the surface of your pot, to leave the raw clay showing through in whatever pattern you choose.
Brush-On Glazes
We have a huge range of Amaco Brush-On glazes at our studio. These are beautiful and incredibly diverse glazes which when layered on top of each other, offer thousands of different glaze combinations. We have a database of combinations we have tried, to help you choose.
These glazes take time to apply and cost a bit extra, so many people choose to 'treat' one or two of their pots to a brush on glaze.
Some combinations are quite simple and quck to apply and look impressive. Others require a bit more skill and patience! The key with these glazes is to paint them on thickly! Don't skimp!
Texture
Adding texture to your pottery can make it feel nice to touch, or can help bring out interesting glaze effects where the glaze 'breaks' over the edges of the textured surface, or pools in the grooves.
You can carve, scratch, hammer, roll textured fabric or wallpapers into the clay. You can imprint plants or flowers or use objects from around the house.
You can also add sprigs - which means cutting out or moulding bits of clay and then sticking them on to your pot to give a relief effect.
