Sketching first means drawing your design in pencil on the ceramic before you start painting. This gives you a guide and prevents you from having to change direction halfway through.
What do you need?
- Ceramic piece of your choice
- Ordinary graphite pencil (not too hard a point)
- Optionally a soft eraser
How it works
Draw your design as lightly as possible onto the ceramic. You simply paint over it — the pencil lines disappear during firing.
Tip: Only use this technique on unpainted ceramic. If you draw on a layer of paint you’ll leave a scratch in your glaze, which will still be visible after firing.
Examples
View examples of designs that turned out exactly as intended thanks to a sketch: View sketching examples →