Slip Transfer

Slip Transfer

One of my favorite techniques to do on pottery is called slip transfer. You start off with a green piece of pottery. Green means it has not yet been fired. I like to build my pottery and then begin the transfer process, I don’t like the pottery to dry out much at all before transferring my design.
You take newsprint (newspaper works too) and I like to draw out my image with a pencil. Then using black underglaze in a bottle with a tiny point I make my drawing. If I’m doing color I will fill in each section in reverse order allowing every color to dry in between.


When my transfer is dry I coat the whole thing with white slip (this is like a very watered down smooth clay) and I coat my pottery form with slip too. I allow each of these to dry just slightly. It begins to have a look of velvet texture to it. Then you press your transfer onto your form, and rub, and roll and take peeks to see how the image is transferring.
Its such an interesting process and usually has a neat texture to it.