Terracotta Looks Amazing When Decorated!…

Terracotta is quite popular in its natural form, but some people prefer it to be decorated, so I wrote this article with that in mind.

This is fairly easy to do and you will also find it quite enjoyable. So now I will give you a list of your requirements to achieve nice, colourful items. A soft pencil, scissors, a black felt tipped pen, cartridge paper, tracing paper, masking tape, some fine nibbed poster paint markers and one with an extra broad nib.

What a good invention poster paints are! They help you to achieve satisfactory results. These paints can be used on fabrics and wood as well as terracotta and, in fact, give permanent marking on porous surfaces.

However, I would not recommend washing them. They are not permanent on glass, plastic, rubber or non absorbent surfaces, but at least you can change your design. So in this instance, it gives you some flexibility.

As an example you can brush on a coat of acrylic varnish to a non porous surface, which will then, in turn, make it permanent.

With cartridge paper, using the poster paint markers, start working out your ideas of design. It is probably better that you make quite a few, as you need to experiment with shapes and your chosen colours.

Now try your design against the terracotta and see how it looks or fits before you get round to painting it. With your tracing paper trace the outlines of your sketches with the black felt tipped pen. You then need to leave a little space around them and place them in position on your article.

Now you have to keep them in place. To do this, use some masking tape, but double it over. This way you can move your motifs any way you choose. If you are satisfied with your motifs start eliminating them and draw them freehand.

We are just about ready to be set free with the colours now. If you have filled in all your outlines, the colour markers can then be used for filling in. You will soon see that the markers will dry very quickly. A word of warning though, it is so easy to smudge your work with the side of your hand, so do be careful not to fall into this trap.

Now looking at your sketches, fill in the insides of them with a fine nibbed paint marker. Then you can continue filling in your motifs with, say, your second colour. Of course you will need to fill in your background colour with a broad nibbed pen, but take care when you are near your motifs.

The motifs themselves need to have an amount of space all round them that has not been painted. Also the background you use does not have to reach right to the top or the bottom of your article. Terracotta often has a decorative edging to it which adds a finishing touch.