How To Make Ceramic Roller Stamps

By Suzi Rhae

Ceramic forms have been decorated through-out history by making marks and impressions on them with found objects. Creating your own stamps is a fun way to decorate the surface of any clay form and it makes it uniquely your own.

Many potters create a stamp to use in place of signing their works and mark each piece that they make with their own special mark. For this project we are going to make a circular stamp that rolls an impression into the clay like a wheel making a track in the road.

Look for patterns and shapes in nature that interest you and recreate them into stamps by carving, drawing and pressing into the soft clay. For those of you who may not have access to a kiln and ceramic clay, this process will also work with synthetic clays like Sculpy and you would bake it in your oven when finished.

Step 1

Roll out the ball of clay into a pancake about 1 inch thick and 7 to 10 inches in diameter with your rolling pin or slab roller. Try to keep the surface smooth and level.

Step 2

Cut a circle out of the clay that is 4 to 6 inches in diameter with your needle tool or a knife. Use a plastic lid as a template if you have one.

Step 3

Lift up your circle and smooth off all of the edges and surfaces with your rib. You can pinch the circle in the very center and roll it around the surface of the table like a wheel to flatten out the outer edge.

Step 4

Take your needle tool and draw your design on the outer edge of the circle for the rolling stamp. You can also use the large flat surface for a circular stamp.

Step 5

When you are all done carving in your design, go back over the stamp and clean up any areas that are not clear of debris and left over clay pieces. Set your stamp aside to dry and begin another!

Step 6

Once your stamps are bone dry clean them up one more time by gently brushing off any debris with your fingers or a soft brush. The dry stamps can be fired to bisque temperature (cone 8 to cone 6) in a kiln. Fired stamps will last a very long time providing you do not drop them on a hard surface!

Have fun and enjoy your new creations!

Tools and Materials Needed

• Small ball of soft clay (about 1/2 lb)
• Rolling pin or slab roller
• Needle tool (a tooth pick will work in a pinch)
• Metal or rubber rib (something flat to smooth with)
• Damp sponge (to wipe your fingers)
• An assortment of patterns and shapes to draw from or use your imagination!

Once you have smoothed out your wheel of clay with your rib, you can make impressions in it with a tool or patterned object. The bottoms of tennis shoes often have great patterns!

 

Try various patterns and depths of textures in the clay.

 

These are rakued and high fired tiles that were made by using roller stamps and incised marks on the clay.

For more great ideas go to:
http://www.potterymaking.org/
http://www.ceramicsmonthly.org/
http://www.acers.org/