Stamped impressions are an easy way to add a raised image to the clay surface, and give the ability to produce multiple pieces with the same design fairly quickly. Stamps, rollers, texture mats, and found objects are all tools used to impress a design onto clay. Here are a couple of photos of the pendants I stamped in the last video:
The first pic is the raw clay after stamping and cleanup, the 2nd & 3rd is after bisque firing to Cone 04, and the last is after brushing on 3 coats of colored transparent glaze (Duncan Envision Clear Black and Grape) and firing again, this time to Cone 06, along with the bisque stamps that made the impressions at the raw clay stage.
I used bisque stamps for these pendants, but there are many options when it comes to impressing texture/designs into clay.
Where do you find the tools for clay impression? You could (A)make your own, (B)use found objects such as plants and shells, or (C)buy commercially made stamps/tools.
(A) Make Your Own
Make your own stamps, rollers and texture mats out of clay and then bisque fire (tutorial below with links to other tutorials); or carve into plaster, wood, linoleum, polymer or air-dry clay. The principal is the same with all of these materials: incise/carve a design into a flat face on the material (or with soft material like clay you can use found objects instead of incising--see ‘found objects’ below), fire it to bisque or cure it as necessary (polymer/air dry clay); it is then pressed into moist clay, leaving a positive/raised impression of the design on the clay. The design you incise/carve/impress on the stamp face should be no more than 1/16” inch deep, or else it will later make it hard to impress the deepest recesses of the stamp design without deforming the clay it’s being pressed into.
I make bisque stamp discs which are initially cut from a 1/4” thick slab of leather-hard low-fire white clay. Alternatively, you could slice pieces off of a coil or use a small ball of clay with a flattened face to hold the design.
Tutorial/Video: Making and Using Clay Bisque Stamps:
Step 1: Use a cutter to remove a circle from a rolled out slab of leather-hard clay. I use the same cutter that I use to cut out pendants (the bisque stamp will be slightly smaller than a raw clay cutout because of shrinkage in the bisque), or a cutter that is slightly smaller than my pendant cutter. Because I use a round cutter, a circle will be part of the impression left on wet clay. If I want a triangular impression with no circle as a background, I would cut the entire stamp into a triangle so that it would be the only shape comprising the background.
Step 2: Using wire, loop and/or ball-tipped tools, outline and then incise your design onto the top face of the clay cutout to no deeper than 1/16”. Use a soft brush (I use a makeup/powder brush) to swipe away the loose clay bits but while incising, try not to worry too much about the burrs and leftover clay along the lines. As the clay dries, these will be easier to brush away and the lines can be gone over again and smoothed over with you finger, a wood tool, or a barely damp sponge or soft, short-bristled brush (I use an eyeshadow brush for this).
If you’re not sure what to carve and/or don’t want to draw freehand, try Googling ‘black and white outline’, ‘silouhette’ or something similar to see some stock drawings. Download one that you like, or draw your own and then size it in Adobe Illustrator or other drawing application, print it up and transfer the image to the wet to leather-hard slab by slightly wetting the slab with a sponge and then lightly burnishing the printout onto the slab. This will leave an inked image on the slab (which burns off in the firing); you’ll then be able to easily see where your cutout and incision/carving lines are. These are the completed stamps in the video, and the impressions that they leave. Normally I would cut out the clay pendant shapes first, and then stamp them.
Other Blogs Demonstrating How To Make Stamps, Rollers, and Texture Mats for Clay:
Nancy Gallagher Pottery: Making Bisque Stamps and Texture Mats
Ceramic Arts Daily: Making Polymer Clay Texture Stamps
Tara Robertson/My Pottery Blog: Bisque Stamps
Ceramic Arts Daily: Making a Bisque Texture Mat with Fresh Flowers
B) Found Objects: Instead of using found objects to make bisque stamps as above, impress them directly onto the clay surface with each piece. That is, you’re using the object to make the impression each time you make a tile/pendant/whatever instead of using a stamp made out of an impression of the object. The design won’t be raised like a stamped design is, of course. You can use things like netting, lace, buttons, wallpaper, shells, wood, plants...anything with a nice texture or relief will work. Thrift shops and flea markets offer good opportunities to pick up some old buttons, etc.
C) Commercial Sources, here's a few to get you started:
Lisa Pavelka: Silicone Stamps and Texture Mats
ClayStamps on Etsy: Bisque rollers and stamps
MKM Wood Stamps at Big Ceramics Store
Xiem Clay Rollers at Bailey Pottery
Plaster Texture Molds at Dogwood Ceramics
Art Clay World USA: Rubber Stamps and Texture Mats.
Stampin.com: Rubber Stamps
Inkadinkado: Rubber Stamps
Above, I've used a commercially made wood stamps, leaves, shells, and stamps made of carved plaster and air-dry clay to leave impressions in the slab.
How to Use Impressing Tools:
Stamps: Apply equal pressure to the stamp as it is pressed into the clay. If the stamp is composed of non-porous material such as rubber, silicone, linoleum or polymer/air-dry clay, it is best to dust the stamp with a small amount of a release agent such as cornstarch before impressing.
Rollers: Roll over the slab before cutting out pendants/tile, or if cut out clay is still wet enough may be able to roll after cutting out.
Texture Mats: You’ll want to transfer the slab to the texture mat and then roll over the top of the slab with a rolling pin, with the texture mat underneath
Found Objects: Use a pastry/flower roller to press plants into the clay, other objects will take experimenting with, usually just press it in and see what you get!
Here's a pic of the finished pieces I'll be demonstrating the surface treatments for in upcoming videos:
The tile has sgraffito and staining, the stamped/impressed pendants for this post are in the upper right, the stained pendants are in the lower right and the sgraffito pendants are in the lower left. I'll be going over how each of these decorating techniques works as well as bisque firing, glazing, and glaze firing. Thanks for reading/viewing, and for now it's back to the slab! Have fun out there playing in the clay now...
The first pic is the raw clay after stamping and cleanup, the 2nd & 3rd is after bisque firing to Cone 04, and the last is after brushing on 3 coats of colored transparent glaze (Duncan Envision Clear Black and Grape) and firing again, this time to Cone 06, along with the bisque stamps that made the impressions at the raw clay stage.
I used bisque stamps for these pendants, but there are many options when it comes to impressing texture/designs into clay.
Where do you find the tools for clay impression? You could (A)make your own, (B)use found objects such as plants and shells, or (C)buy commercially made stamps/tools.
(A) Make Your Own
Make your own stamps, rollers and texture mats out of clay and then bisque fire (tutorial below with links to other tutorials); or carve into plaster, wood, linoleum, polymer or air-dry clay. The principal is the same with all of these materials: incise/carve a design into a flat face on the material (or with soft material like clay you can use found objects instead of incising--see ‘found objects’ below), fire it to bisque or cure it as necessary (polymer/air dry clay); it is then pressed into moist clay, leaving a positive/raised impression of the design on the clay. The design you incise/carve/impress on the stamp face should be no more than 1/16” inch deep, or else it will later make it hard to impress the deepest recesses of the stamp design without deforming the clay it’s being pressed into.
I make bisque stamp discs which are initially cut from a 1/4” thick slab of leather-hard low-fire white clay. Alternatively, you could slice pieces off of a coil or use a small ball of clay with a flattened face to hold the design.
Tutorial/Video: Making and Using Clay Bisque Stamps:
Step 1: Use a cutter to remove a circle from a rolled out slab of leather-hard clay. I use the same cutter that I use to cut out pendants (the bisque stamp will be slightly smaller than a raw clay cutout because of shrinkage in the bisque), or a cutter that is slightly smaller than my pendant cutter. Because I use a round cutter, a circle will be part of the impression left on wet clay. If I want a triangular impression with no circle as a background, I would cut the entire stamp into a triangle so that it would be the only shape comprising the background.
Step 2: Using wire, loop and/or ball-tipped tools, outline and then incise your design onto the top face of the clay cutout to no deeper than 1/16”. Use a soft brush (I use a makeup/powder brush) to swipe away the loose clay bits but while incising, try not to worry too much about the burrs and leftover clay along the lines. As the clay dries, these will be easier to brush away and the lines can be gone over again and smoothed over with you finger, a wood tool, or a barely damp sponge or soft, short-bristled brush (I use an eyeshadow brush for this).
If you’re not sure what to carve and/or don’t want to draw freehand, try Googling ‘black and white outline’, ‘silouhette’ or something similar to see some stock drawings. Download one that you like, or draw your own and then size it in Adobe Illustrator or other drawing application, print it up and transfer the image to the wet to leather-hard slab by slightly wetting the slab with a sponge and then lightly burnishing the printout onto the slab. This will leave an inked image on the slab (which burns off in the firing); you’ll then be able to easily see where your cutout and incision/carving lines are. These are the completed stamps in the video, and the impressions that they leave. Normally I would cut out the clay pendant shapes first, and then stamp them.
Other Blogs Demonstrating How To Make Stamps, Rollers, and Texture Mats for Clay:
Nancy Gallagher Pottery: Making Bisque Stamps and Texture Mats
Ceramic Arts Daily: Making Polymer Clay Texture Stamps
Tara Robertson/My Pottery Blog: Bisque Stamps
Ceramic Arts Daily: Making a Bisque Texture Mat with Fresh Flowers
B) Found Objects: Instead of using found objects to make bisque stamps as above, impress them directly onto the clay surface with each piece. That is, you’re using the object to make the impression each time you make a tile/pendant/whatever instead of using a stamp made out of an impression of the object. The design won’t be raised like a stamped design is, of course. You can use things like netting, lace, buttons, wallpaper, shells, wood, plants...anything with a nice texture or relief will work. Thrift shops and flea markets offer good opportunities to pick up some old buttons, etc.
C) Commercial Sources, here's a few to get you started:
Lisa Pavelka: Silicone Stamps and Texture Mats
ClayStamps on Etsy: Bisque rollers and stamps
MKM Wood Stamps at Big Ceramics Store
Xiem Clay Rollers at Bailey Pottery
Plaster Texture Molds at Dogwood Ceramics
Art Clay World USA: Rubber Stamps and Texture Mats.
Stampin.com: Rubber Stamps
Inkadinkado: Rubber Stamps
Above, I've used a commercially made wood stamps, leaves, shells, and stamps made of carved plaster and air-dry clay to leave impressions in the slab.
How to Use Impressing Tools:
Stamps: Apply equal pressure to the stamp as it is pressed into the clay. If the stamp is composed of non-porous material such as rubber, silicone, linoleum or polymer/air-dry clay, it is best to dust the stamp with a small amount of a release agent such as cornstarch before impressing.
Rollers: Roll over the slab before cutting out pendants/tile, or if cut out clay is still wet enough may be able to roll after cutting out.
Texture Mats: You’ll want to transfer the slab to the texture mat and then roll over the top of the slab with a rolling pin, with the texture mat underneath
Found Objects: Use a pastry/flower roller to press plants into the clay, other objects will take experimenting with, usually just press it in and see what you get!
Here's a pic of the finished pieces I'll be demonstrating the surface treatments for in upcoming videos:
Those stamped pendants are lovely! I'd like to do something similar with stamps I've carved out of soft lino so I appreciate the tip about using cornstarch to help it not stick.
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