How to Use Basic Ceramic Techniques

Anyone can walk into a craft store. He can admire and buy an unpainted piece of pottery.The true hobbyist--who is interested in learning the basic ceramic techniques--can turn that same ordinary painted figurine into a true work of art. Base coating should be done before even one color of paint has been put on the brush. It will add details to that ceramic piece once it has dried.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Ceramic piece to decorate
• Acrylic paints
• Brushes
• glitter
• Newspaper

1. 
   Use a hard bristle brush for the base coat

   Give the ceramic piece a base coat. This paints the entire piece with black acrylic liquid paint. Use a light touch while smoothly and evenly covering the entire piece. If you have raised details (such as animal hair or grass), make sure you paint 'in the direction' of the detail. The trick is to get the black base color inside the detail and not on top of it. This will give dimension to the piece. Allow for drying between coats, but keep applying light base coats. Do this until you stop seeing tiny ''white'' pieces showing through on the surface. Watch closely. If you see even a touch of white, paint it with the black.

2. Add color to the piece-area by area. Do this by using the dry brush technique. Lightly dip only the very tip of a hard-bristle brush into the desired color. Remove any excess paint by brushing it back and forth across the sheet of paper. Do this until you no longer see paint coming from the brush. Use back and forth strokes to brush over a specific area on the ceramics, brushing ''across'' any ridges and not into the crevices. Repeat until the entire area has the desired color or shadings.

3. 
   Glitter Sparkles

   Get creative with glitter. Glitter added to ceramic pieces adds sparkle. It literally makes a piece shine. Glitter comes in a variety of colors, and it is great on a roof top to depict rain on the roof...or on any area that could use some adornment. Glitter comes either dry or wet. The dry glitter can easily be sprinkled on wet paint and allowed to dry. Liquid glitter would be painted directly from the bottle onto specific areas.

4. 
   Shadings on Grass

   Add shadings to grass that has height and crevices. Do this by dry brushing the basic color on the entire area over the crevices. The crevices are already black since they have been ''base coated.' Keep this in mind as you take a lighter shade of green (grass color). Use it to dry brush only segments of the coated area. Allow it to dry. Follow up by using a deeper shade of paint. This should give depth and shadings by dry brushing the tips of grass--as well as any areas that should be a darker shade. Using this method on the bottom of the grassy area--with a brown color--will give the appearance of soil and dirt areas. This method will give dimension to the grassy area itself by the black base coat inside of each crevice. This shading effect can be repeated by using other lighter or darker colors (in a random pattern), over the entire grassy area or any other area that would benefit from shadings and a touch of realism.

5. Make sure that you have fun decorating your piece of ceramics. There are no hard set rules as to decorating once you learn the methods as mentioned above. Keep in mind that, if you do not like what you have done, you can always base coat that specific area and redo it.

Tips & Warnings

• Use acrylic paint. It dries faster than oils. It has no lasting odor, and it can be dry brushed as many times as you want.