The Beginner’s Guide to Decorating Pottery: An Introduction to Glazes, Patterns, Inlay, Luster, and Dimensional Designs

Ceramics artist Reinhardt debuts with a helpful primer on ceramic surface design techniques. These include additive and subtractive relief (adding clay shapes to or carving out clay from the surface of a piece); applying glaze, underglaze (paint put on before the glazing process), and luster; and inlaying (using different colors of clay in one piece). Reinhardt shows how to put these techniques to use with straightforward projects. For example, creating coasters involves applying black and white glaze in a checker pattern on small circular pieces of fired clay, while the more ambitious planter is constructed by adding decorative rectangles to the side of a large clay bowl. Expounding on her “top five design principles” (form, color, pattern, texture, and function) to consider when decorating pottery, she encourages readers to find inspiration for patterns by walking through nature and notes that clays with lots of grog (granular bits of “ground up fired clay”) “finish with a rough, earthy, speckled texture.” Despite the book’s title, Reinhardt writes that readers “should already have a basic understanding of the ceramics process,” and true beginners may struggle to follow the undefined terminology (bisqueware, underglaze, slip-casting). Still, intermediate ceramicists will appreciate the ideas on how to liven up their pottery. This is worth a look. (Sept.)