How to Paint Your Own Pottery Design

Plain pottery can be beautified with custom painted designs.

Decorating bare pottery can be a fun and creative task for even the novice artist. It gives you the opportunity to create your own designs that add to the look of your home decor scheme or serve as artistic and sentimental gifts to your loved ones. Knowing how to create and paint your own pottery designs requires some creativity and the desire to make an eye-catching piece of pottery artwork.

Things You'll Need

• Pottery
• Pencil
• Paper
• Scissors
• Masking tape
• Paint set
• Assorted paintbrushes

Instructions

1. Draw a design of your creation on the paper, making it the size you want it to be on the pottery. Notable designs to draw for beginners include flowers and fruits.

2. Cut the image from the paper carefully as a stencil. To do this, puncture the center of your drawing carefully with the tip of the scissors. Cut around the inside of the drawing's outline, and then cut around the outer edges of the outline. This creates a silhouette or stencil of the drawing design.

3. Tape the stencil to the area of the pottery you want to decorate. Use the masking tape to tape around the outer edges of the stencil.

4. Dip a paintbrush into a color of your choice of acrylic paint.

5. Apply the tip of the brush to the pottery near the edges of the outline of the stencil. Use dabbing motions to apply the outline.

6. Fill in the painted outline with varying colors to create the design as you see fit. Use dabbing movements to keep the painting textured. Allow the painted design to dry for 2 hours before removing the masking tape and stencil. Let it dry for an additional 4 hours.