If you’ve got the creative urge, then we have a great outlet for you!Pottery Painting / Ceramics

Stencils Make You Look Like A Professional!

So many times, people come into our studio and the first thing they say is, “My friend suggested we come and do this together, and while I’m excited about it, I’m not really an artist type. I can’t even draw a straight line!” At The Bent Brush, we never let that hold back our creativity! We understand that you may not have a lot of experience with this, but you still want to create something that will make you proud to either display it in your home or give it as a gift. The best part is, we have plenty of great techniques we can teach you that will be easy and have your pottery look professionally painted!

One of the easiest techniques that you can use is stenciling. We are excited that we have a paper cutting device in the studio that takes just about any image and creates a stencil out of it! I have often used this to make truly beautiful designs!

Stenciling is a great decorative technique for pottery, and it is often used in the professional studios as a way to ensure consistency in design when creating an entire set of dishes etc. A traditional method for applying stencils is to cut or tear paper shapes, adhere them to the bisque piece, and then apply glaze. Let’s go through it step by step though.

First you want to choose your stencil design. We use adhesive backed paper to print the design, so once you choose the design you can start to look at where you want it positioned on your pottery piece.​

Next peel off the backing and position the design on your piece. You can now look at the many glazes we have in the studio and choose some to use on your pottery. Once you’ve chosen that, you can apply it with a paint brush or one of the sponge brushes we have. Load your brush or sponge with color (make sure it’s not gloppy, especially if your stencil is highly detailed), to remove a little of the glaze, bounce the brush or sponge on a piece of paper towel. Then using a light touch, dab the color on top of the stencil so that it goes through the openings in the stencil.

If you want the non-stenciled part of your pottery to be a different color, you can now paint the rest of the piece. Be sure not to paint toward the stencil since sometimes the color will end up getting under the edges, which will ruin the design. Brush the paint brush outward from the stencil instead.

Let your color dry before removing the stencil. At this point, you can decide whether the design is complete or whether to overlay this initial stenciling with another layer for added dimension or to outline portions of the shapes with another glaze color using decorative brush strokes.

Once the piece is dry, you can give it to us to put into the kiln. And that’s it! An easy way to end up with a gorgeous hand-crafted piece of pottery for your home or to give as a gift!