Nature Imprints

Here, I created two pieces using plants from nature to imprint patterns into the clay.

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The first of these pieces was a simple diamond tray imprinted with some oak leaves found on the ground just outside the pottery studio. Once I had imprinted the slab with the oak leaves, I carefully laid the slab into a plaster mold. I used a plaster mold as the plaster sucks the moisture out of the clay, meaning the piece dries very quickly.

After bisque firing, I painted over the leaf area with a dark green underglaze and wiped off the excess, leaving the colour within the imprints of the oak leaves. I really liked this effect as it brought out the intricate 3D shapes of the leaves. The area surrounding the leaves was left in the raw white clay so as not to detract from the imprint. This simple design went really well and I feel the white clay contributed to the success of this piece.

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The second piece was a handbuilt slab pen pot created using original raku clay. The same imprinting techniques were used however, the plants and leaves used created a deeper and less intricate design which did not hold the underglaze and transparent glaze in the same way as previously. Furthermore, the raku clay is a lot darker and textured which detracted from the imprinting. In the future, I would use a white clay and more delicate plants and flowers for imprinting. Nonetheless, I do enjoy the shape of this piece and liked the imprints in the raw clay in between firings.