Unglazed Surface Design

Stamps are a fun way to decorated the surface of your clay. Stamps can be found objects, store bought, or handmade.

Found:
Buttons
Beads
Rocks
Shells
Coral
Toys
Natral objects
Kitchen Gadgets
Tools from the garage
Just about anything

Bought:
Rubber stamps
Polymer clay textures
Custom clay stamps
Textile stamps
Sealing wax stamps

Handmade Can Be Made From:
Bisqued clay
Plaster
Erasers
Styrofoam
Rubber
Wood
Metal

Making stamps for clay is fairly easy. The first material to concider is of course clay.

The most simplest method of making a clay stamp is to take a small ball or block of clay and press it to something with texture, i.e. the side of a tree, a cool texture on a wall, etc. Slip and score a handle on it if needed and bisque fire it in the kiln. These stamps will last without wear virtually forever if not dropped.

A second method for making stamps out of clay is to carve a design into the clay. This is a good way to make a signature stamp or initial stamp. Tools needed are your needle tool, a cleanup tool, and may a flat loop tool if you are removing lots of clay. So roll out a small slab of clay about 1/2" thick. Draw your design on a piece of transluscent paper. Flip the paper over and trace your design on the other side. Now place the paper on the clay slab where you want your design the traced side up. Take your needle tool and poke small pinholes through the paper and into the clay. Remove paper. See your design? Now connect the pinholes with an incised line using your needle tool. Now with your clean up tool remove the clay that you do not want, try to keep the lines of your design crisp. After you have finished removing the unneeded clay slip and score a handle onto the slab if needed. Allow to dry, before bisquing you might need to go over the design with your finger or fine sand paper to remove clay burs.

Impressing things into clay is a wonderful way to make texture onto clay. Cloth, lace and netting is likely my favorite things to use to make texture in clay. Burlap, dollies, knitting and crocheted items, potato sacks, etc make great impressions.

My all time favorite thing to impress into clay are handmade dollies. I find them all the time at the local thrift store, ragged, stained once lovely lacelike creations for less than a $1. Someones grandmother, mother, aunt or sister worked hard making these once wonderful well loved things. I give them new life. I roll out a slab of clay, then arrange the old dollie on top of the clay and roll it into the clay with my rolling pin or slab roller. I quickly but carefully lift the dollie from the clay. I then cut the slab into the size and shape I need and drape over a slump mould with the texture side down. I then lightly hand press the dollie into the back side of the clay. I clean it up a bit and add feet if needed. When it is ready, I flip the form off the mould. After it is bisqued I usually glaze it with either a transluscent glaze or glaze the item and then wipe the glaze off the raised portion of the design leaving the glaze in the impressed area and fire as is or with a clear glaze over that. Once fired the needlework is forever recorded in the surface of my clay. The once loved ruined work of some deft handed lady of the past is now ready to be loved and cherished anew.

I'd like to take this opportunity to give a word of warning: Not every object is legal to use as texture.

Some items you may come across and think would make a great texture in clay could be protected by copyright laws. Some buttons, toys, lace, crocheted designs, the bottom of shoes, bought stamps, etc. may fall under someone else's copyright and is not legal to use in your work.

If you decide to use any of these kinds of things in your work do some research on the maker of these objects to make sure you are in the clear to use them. Pay special attention to rubber stamps as many of the manufactures say it is ok to use them in your work but not any work for resale.