Choosing Leaves for Pottery Design

Video Transcript

"Now, I want to talk for just a second about the selection of your leaves. Because, it is important what kind of leaves you choose. What's important about the leaf is first of all that it be a nice soft supple leaf so that it will roll into the clay very easily without cracking. The second very important thing is that the back of the leaf have pronounced veins. A lot of leaves you'll look at the front side, they're pretty you like the shape. But, if you flip it over the back is almost flat and you're not going to get any detail transferred onto your clay. This small oval leaf is an example of a leaf that won't work well. It's hard. It's a hard leaf and it's also it doesn't have very much on the back there. And, I'm going to roll it in just to show that there's not a whole lot of detail coming out of that leaf. So, later on in the project when we try to glaze that area you're not going to see much at all. But, then this leaf which is a mint leaf it has a lot of pronounced veins on the back of it. And, if I roll that in there you can see all the veins going all the way to the edge of the leaf and the center vein is very pronounced. And, that's what you want to look for is some leaf that's very soft with pronounced veins. Maple leaves are excellent if you're looking for big leaves. Fig leaves are also excellent. There's other, there's plenty of different leaves that work really well. But, those are two that I really like myself."