Over the past year, I’ve gotten a lot of comments on this blog and Facebook asking for me
to show how I make my stamps. To me, it’s pretty simple. It’s a piece of clay. Some tools.
A little squishing & carving. Nothing too technical. In case you’re still feeling a little
apprehensive, here’s a photo tutorial of how I make my stamps. And thanks for asking.

I start by rolling some simple coils. Different sizes. Different widths. I try to keep them
clean, uniform and smooth. But that’s just me. I do roll a few of them out so they have some
time to stiffen up a bit before adding the designs.

Then I pull out a collection of tools. Anything I can use to press into the clay to make an
indentation. Nothing special. Just some random tools.

Then I start pressing the tools into the ends of the coils to make my stamps. I always put
a different design on each end of the coil. That way I get two stamps for one piece of clay!
What could be better?!

But before you start randomly pressing in patterns, there are a few things to remember…
1. Whatever pattern you press IN to your clay coil will be what sticks OUT where you press
it into your pot.
2. The impression left in your pot will appear to be the opposite of design on your stamp.
3. If you try to do letter stamps, they’ll need to look reversed on your stamp to turn out
correctly when you press them into your clay.
4. It’s not just the design, but also the perimeter shape that will make impressions.
5. You need to make sure your indentations & lines are wide enough & deep enough for clay
to be able to get in there. A lot of people try to “draw” with their needle tool, but then find
out later that they’re not getting a clean impression. That’s because they either left it all
scratchy from the needle tool… or more likely it’s too thin – no clay can get squished in there!
6. All of your stamps need to be dried and then bisque fired prior to pressing into clay.
7. I generally wait until my pots are on the slightly wet side of leatherhard for good stamping.
If your pot is too wet, the stamps will stick too much. If your pots are too dry, the stamp
won’t go in far enough to make a clear impression… or worse yet, crack the pot.
8. When pressing my stamps into the pot to create the design, I make sure that I have a finger
inside the pot opposite where I’m pressing the stamp. So that I have even pressure –
stamp pressing in, finger pressing out, squishing clay between the two.

So here’s a few examples of a few new stamps. I won’t really know how they’re really going to
work until after they’re bisqued and I can actually use them for the first time.

After some time, I’ve made a few new stamps. Each one a little different. Of course,
when they come out of the kiln and I use them for the first time, there will be favorites….
and there will be some that aren’t quite what I was looking for. But that’s okay. You can always
make more. And just because they’re not making the mark you intended does not mean that it
is a bad stamp. Save it for awhile, try it a couple times, and you may grow to love it more later.

One last thing before I set them out to dry… I print my name on the side of each one.
Working in a group studio area and teaching classes, you never quite know where your
stamps may end up. I don’t think that I’ve ever really “lost” one, but it never hurts to label
your things just in case. So yes, every stamp gets labeled before they dry.

Once they’re dry, they will go into a bisque kiln firing. All of my stamps are fired once
so they are sturdy and porous. If they were fired to cone 10, they would become vitrified
and no longer porous – which also means they would stick to the clay. If your stamps stick,
they will not release from the clay cleanly and your impressions will not look as clean.

So there’s my quick photo tutorial of how I make my stamps.
My biggest suggestion is to make LOTS of stamps, and learn from every batch.
Learn how to make the stamp you want. Learn how to use your stamps on your pots
to get the stamped designs you want. Learn to make pots with stamps you love!!!

It’s the second week of our new session of pottery classes at Lillstreet.
My students are still working on basic cylinders, basic trimming and handles for mugs.
But I also “needed” them to make some stamps tonight so we can use them later in the
session after they’ve been bisqued. The sooner they get them back, the sooner they can
start decorating their pots!!!

To make tonight’s class even sweeter, one of my students brought in some yummy
homemade s’more cookies… complete with a graham cracker cookie base, a gooey chocolate
center and “torch-roasted” marshmallows!!! And you know how I love a good s’more!!!

Towards the end of last year, I had become kind of enamored with my new, slightly larger,
textured tiles. Now don’t get me wrong… they’re by no means large. They’re just a smidge
bigger. And I’m still digging ’em… so I had to make more!!!

By the end of the night, I had pretty much covered my entire work table. So I was done.
I put all of my tiles on a plastic grid so they can dry more evenly. It doesn’t always work,
but they seem to dry more evenly, with less warpage, when they have air drying them from
all sides, top & bottom. It’s a little “trick” I learned from friend & tile-maker Mike Skiersch.
It’s a simple “trick” using the plastic grids they put in suspended ceilings to help “hide” the
fluorescent light fixtures. Any hardware store has them… and they’re pretty darn cheap!!!

It’s always fun to go through all of your work down in the storage room. And to see everything
one more time before it goes upstairs to the Home Show. This large stamped bowl caught my
eye. Mainly because I know that the glaze is “supposed” to be a beautiful red color. Not blue.
But it’s one of those glazes that can be easily affected by the kiln firing. If there’s a little too
much oxidation in the kiln, the red glaze turns this beautiful blue-ish color.

Sadly, nothing you can ever bank on happening ever again.
Just another “happy accident” coming out of the kiln!

It’s been a busy week setting up for this coming weekend’s Holiday Home Show…
let alone a whirlwind tour of Dallas, Washington DC and Boston (more to come).
But I also took time out today to help my friend Catherine Tweedie fire her soda kiln.
She unloads on Monday… and I can’t wait to see her lovelies!!! While we were firing,
I did manage to make another batch of tiles in a new, slightly larger size!

My bisque kiln from last night was still warmer than I would like.
So I decided to let to cool longer and dive into glazing some pieces from an earlier kiln!
I generally start by painting a lot of temoku glaze into all of the stamped impressions.

And then, once the glaze is dried, I take a moist sponge and wipe off the top surface
so that the temoku glaze stays inside the stamped impression – but not on the surface.
I love how the inlaid glaze really shows off the pattern of the stamp, instead of covering
& obliterating it with too much glaze!

But don’t think that they’re done. Oh no, I’ve got a lot of work to do on them first.
Liner glazes, sprayed accents, wadding, etc. So there’s still a lot to do… and even more
coming out of the bisque kiln tomorrow night. Not a lot of time to get everything done.
It’s my plan to load the soda kiln on Friday evening, and fire all day Saturday!

Working to fill another soda kiln…and as usual, I’m starting with my favorite: MUGS!!!
Last night I threw the cylinders, tonight I stamped them. Hopefully I will get them
trimmed, handled and slip painted tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

It was a great day today at the RAVENSWOOD ARTWALK.
A lot of great people stopped by today to see our studios… and, even better,
I was very productive through the day. I finally finished detailing these votives!
Forty-four thrown… forty-four finished.

Stamped, pierced & slip painted. Now they need to dry and find a bisque kiln.

I really like making ovals. And I think people really like them too… maybe it’s
the weird confusion of how a round wheel can throw an oval. Never quite realizing
that they are “assembled” as an oval, not “thrown” as an oval. So I start by throwing
a lot of straight-sided cylinders without bottoms.

I let them set-up a bit overnight under a sheet of plastic, and then alter them into
oval shapes by simply squishing them very gently after wiring them of the bat.

By the time I had gone though and “ovaled” each of them, the first ones were already
“leather-hard” enough for stamping. So I started the process again, working my way through
all of them. Kind of an assembly line… working across the table from left to right.

Then it was time to add the bottoms. So I throw some slabs with the same clay body.
I attach the bottoms with a good amount of scoring & slipping… smoothing them out
so the “attachment” line doesn’t show up. I want them to look seamless.

And then, to finish them off, I added a few little highlights of colored slip on some of the
stamp impressions. And since I was in a hurry to get them dried and into a kiln, I dried them
all on top of plastic grids elevated on wooden sticks so the air can circulate under & around
the pots – drying them faster and more evenly!

Once they were dry, they went into my electric bisque kiln after class on Tuesday night.
These will wait to be glazed until I fire my next soda kiln… which at this point is just one
month away! And these are the first pieces I have to fill the kiln… uh oh, I definitely need
some more production weekends like this one!!!

While packing for the art fair, I took a few minutes to take a few more pictures!
Some more soda fired textures & glazes to post & share… then show off this weekend
at “Art In The Barn” with these patterns on the sides of my textured slab vases!!!