Surface and decoration · Relief carving
A surface with a foreground, a middle and a background.
Relief is carving that changes the shape of the surface instead of its colour. Some parts stand up, some parts sit back, and the shadow between them does the work. It needs thick clay, firm leather hard, and a fixed order of operations.
This page walks that order with a tick list at every step: the plan, the outline cut, lowering the background, modelling, detail, cleanup and the slow drying that relief depends on. Six fixes and five videos from potters who do not work here.
This is the short version: the three levels, the five moves in order, and a tick list at each. The reasoning, the additive method and the questions are all in the comprehensive version.
Read it, then watch it
Why this is written down and filmed, both.
Relief carving is a sequence more than a skill. Outline, lower, model, detail, clean, in that order, and most of what goes wrong is doing the fourth thing second. A sequence is exactly what writing holds and video loses, because you watch twenty minutes of hands and remember the flower. The hands are still worth watching: how a loop tool is held, how much it takes off per pass, what leather hard actually looks like under a blade. So the order and the tick lists live here, and the videos are for the hands.
Use both, in this order
Read the step. Watch the part of the video that covers it. Do it with the tick list open. This is a two or three session project, and the page remembers where you got to.
The whole idea
Decide three levels. Cut down to them in order.
Relief is a surface with a foreground, a middle and a background, and the trick is deciding which is which before the tool touches clay. Then it is five moves in a fixed order: outline the shapes, lower the background, model the forms, cut the detail, clean up. Firm leather hard, thick enough to carve into, dried slowly.
The five-minute version
The whole technique in six moves.
If you already carve and you just want the shape of it, this is the shape of it. Everything below is these six moves, slowed down and with the places they fail marked.
Before you cut anything
What you need on the table.
Six things. Two loops and a needle do most of the work; the depth reference and the bag are the two that separate a finished relief from a lumpy one that dried out.
Two loop tools, a needle or small V tool, a wooden modelling tool, a dry soft brush and a damp one, a toothpick marked to your depth, and a bag with a damp paper towel for between sessions. That is all of it.
Step one
Start with enough clay, at the right stage, with a plan.
Relief is spent from the wall. Every millimetre you lower the background is a millimetre the pot no longer has. A slab for a tile wants to be half an inch thick. A thrown pot wants to be thrown heavy where the carving will go, three eighths of an inch at least, or it wants a carving layer: a thin slab, scored and slipped onto the leather hard wall, that takes the carving instead of the pot.
The stage is firm leather hard. A fingernail marks the surface; a fingertip does not dent it. Softer than that and every edge drags and closes up behind the tool. Harder than that and the edges chip into crumbs. It is a window of a few hours on a warm evening and a day or two under plastic, and the whole project lives inside it, which is why a bag and a damp paper towel are on the tools list.
Then the plan, and this is the part nobody wants to do. Draw the design in pencil on the clay. Then decide, for every shape, whether it is foreground, middle or background. Three levels. Not five. A leaf in front of a stem in front of a plain ground is a relief; a drawing where everything is at its own height is a muddle that takes twice as long and reads as noise. Simplify the drawing until the three levels are obvious, and then simplify it once more.
Build it up first if the shapes are big
A raised shape can be added rather than carved around. Score and slip the area, press on a pad of soft clay, blend the edges with a wooden tool, and let it firm up to match the piece. It is faster than lowering a whole background by hand and it costs no wall thickness. Most good relief is an added rough shape refined with a loop.
Carve when the edges matter
Added clay gives you a shape. Carving gives you an edge. The crisp line where a petal meets the background, the shadow under a rim, the fine vein: all subtractive, all at firm leather hard, all with a sharp tool. If the design is small and detailed, skip the adding and carve the whole thing from a thick slab.
Step two
Outline everything, then lower the background to one depth.
The outline cut comes first, always. Run a needle or a small V tool around every shape, held upright, a couple of millimetres deep. This is a stop cut. When you lower the background afterwards, the loop tool runs into that cut and stops, and the edge of the shape stays crisp instead of getting torn as the loop drags past it.
Then the background. Decide a depth and mark it on a toothpick, or cut a small guide groove to that depth at the edge of the piece. Two or three millimetres is enough to cast a real shadow on a tile; more than that on a pot means a carving layer. Take the background down with a medium loop in shallow passes across the whole area, not one corner to finish before the next. The loop takes off a curl at a time. Check against the toothpick often. Stop at the depth, everywhere, and resist the last pass that would make it perfect, because that pass is how backgrounds go lumpy.
If the design has a middle level, lower it now too, to its own depth, before any modelling starts. The order is levels first, forms second. A piece where the forms were modelled before the background was set never quite reads right, because the eye can tell the shadows do not agree with each other.
The tool angle
Hold the loop nearly flat to the surface for the background, so it planes rather than gouges. A loop held at forty-five degrees digs a trench. The floor of the background should be one continuous plane, and the way to get one is to think of the tool as a rib with a hole in it.
Step three
Model the forms, then cut the detail last.
Now the shapes become things. A raised disc becomes a petal when one edge rolls down toward the background and the other stands up. Decide where the light comes from, and round the edges that face away from it. Use the small loop and the wooden tool. Take small amounts. A form that has been over-modelled cannot be un-modelled.
Undercuts are the temptation here. An edge carved back under itself throws a deep shadow and looks wonderful on the bench. It also traps glaze, holds a bubble of air in the bisque, and makes the piece impossible to press or slump later. Undercut where the shadow is the point, on the one or two edges the eye lands on, and leave the rest of the edges as clean vertical or sloped cuts.
Detail goes in last, when the clay is at its firmest and the tool is at its sharpest. Veins, hatching, the line down a stem, the texture on a background: a needle held upright, one pass each, no going back over. Fine lines cut twice are twice as wide. If the clay has dried past leather hard while you were modelling, stop, mist it, bag it, and do the detail tomorrow.
Step four
Clean it, dry it slowly, then glaze for shadow.
Crumbs out, edges softened, then leave it alone. A dry soft brush sweeps the low points. A barely damp brush run along a cut edge takes the sharpness off without filling the detail. No sponge, ever: a sponge turns crumbs into slurry and slurry into filled detail.
Then the drying, which is where relief pieces die. A relief is thick in the foreground and thin in the background by design, and thin clay shrinks first. Dry it fast and the background pulls the foreground apart along the deepest cuts. So: under loose plastic for the first few days, then uncovered but out of any draft, and tiles between two boards, flipped daily, so both faces dry at the same rate. Our drying lesson and the flat tiles lesson are both worth the ten minutes.
Glazing is the second place relief dies. Three coats of an opaque glaze fill the low points, round every edge and turn an evening of carving into a faint suggestion. Relief works on shadow, so glaze for shadow: a wash wiped back before a clear, a celadon or translucent satin that pools in the low points, or simply two thin coats of a transparent. Our wipe-away lesson is the natural next page, because relief is the best texture there is to wipe a wash back from.
Watch it done
Now watch five people do this five ways.
Watch this one, then go carve.
None of these potters work here or know we exist. Between them they cover a tile from start to finish, the teaching version, the moisture question, a curved vessel and a time lapse of the order of operations. Nothing but the still frame loads until you press play.
Twenty-four minutes, a tile, every stage in order. The other four videos are in the comprehensive version.
When it goes wrong
Six ways it goes wrong, and what to do about each.
The three failures that happen on the first night.
Pick the one that looks like your piece. The first three are clay problems and all three are recoverable. The last three are patience problems.
The tool went through the wall
Not enough clay to carve into. A thrown wall at a quarter inch has nothing to give; lowering a background even a couple of millimetres leaves it paper thin, and the next pass goes through.
Build or throw the piece thicker where the carving will be, three eighths of an inch at least, or add a carving layer: a slab three to six millimetres thick, scored and slipped onto the leather hard wall, that you carve into instead of the pot.
Patch it from behind with a coil of the same clay, scored and slipped, blended smooth. Let the patch firm up before you carve near it again, and carve shallower over that area. A patch on a wall that was too thin to begin with will hold if it dries slowly.
The edges crumble instead of cutting clean
Too dry. Past firm leather hard the clay stops parting and starts chipping, and every edge you cut turns into a little landslide of crumbs.
Carve at firm leather hard: a fingernail marks it, a fingertip does not. Keep the piece under plastic between sessions, and if it has started to dry, mist it lightly and wrap it for an hour before going back in.
Mist it, wrap it, wait. When it has softened to leather hard again, go over the crumbled edges with a sharp loop and take them back to clean clay. A soft damp brush smooths what is left.
The details smeared and the edges went soft
Too wet. Clay that is still plastic drags under a tool instead of parting, and every fine edge you cut closes back up behind the blade.
Wait longer before carving the fine detail. Rough out the levels at soft leather hard if you like, then let the piece firm up before the edges and the detail go in.
Let it firm up, then recut the detail. Most smeared detail is recoverable at leather hard with one careful pass.
It cracked while drying, usually at the deepest cuts
Uneven thickness dried at uneven speed. A relief piece is thick in the foreground and thin in the background by design, and if it dries fast the thin parts shrink first and pull the thick parts apart.
Dry it slowly and evenly: under loose plastic for the first few days, out of any draft, flipped or propped so the back dries as fast as the front. Tiles dry between two boards. Keep the depth changes gradual rather than cliff-edged where you can.
A hairline crack at leather hard can be scored, slipped and burnished closed. A crack in bone dry clay is permanent; the piece will fire, but the crack will open in the kiln. Our drying lesson is the one to read before the next one.
The relief vanished under the glaze
Too much glaze, or the wrong glaze. Three coats of an opaque glaze fill the low points, round off the edges and turn a carving into a suggestion. Relief lives on shadow, and glaze that fills the shadows kills it.
A thin transparent, a celadon that pools, or a wash wiped back before glazing. Two coats rather than three. Test the pairing on a tile before committing a piece that took an evening to carve.
Fired is fired. Keep it, and next time take the glazing as seriously as the carving.
The lowered background is lumpy and uneven
The background was taken down freehand with no reference depth, so some passes went deeper than others. Under glaze, an uneven background reads as a mistake even when the carving above it is good.
Set a depth before you start: a needle mark on a toothpick, or a shallow guide groove at the edge, and lower everything to that. Take the background down in passes across the whole area rather than finishing one corner at a time.
At leather hard, plane the background with a flat loop or a rib edge held flat, working across the whole area. If it has gone dry, a light stippling with a stiff brush turns lumpy into textured, which is a decision rather than a mistake.
How it works here
At The Clay Hole, relief is a leather hard job.
This page is written for potters everywhere. A few things are specific to our building, so you know before you start.
Four things to know here
Carve at leather hard, not bone dry: bone dry carving makes silica dust at a shared table. Loop tools are studio tools for every Level except Green, who bring their own. Bag your piece with your name and the date between sessions. Bisque is cone 05 and free; the glaze firing is cone 5½ at five cents a cubic inch, measured on the longest dimension in every direction, so relief that stands proud of a tile is measured to the top of the relief.
Tools by Level
Loop tools, ribbon tools, needles and wooden modelling tools are studio tools, open to Yellow, Purple and Black Level Members. Green Level Members bring their own. A basic set of loops costs less than a bag of clay and lasts for years.
Between sessions
We do not have a communal damp box. A plastic bag with a damp paper towel keeps a piece at leather hard for a week on your shelf. Write your name and the date on the bag; unlabelled work on a shelf is how relief tiles go missing.
Slabs and slab molds
Relief tiles start on the slab rollers, which need the free slab roller and slab mold certification. Carve on a board, never on a slab mold; the slab molds are shared and a loop tool through one is a fee nobody enjoys.
Firing
Bisque is cone 05 and free. The glaze firing is cone 5½ at five cents a cubic inch, $4.80 minimum, and the measurement is the longest dimension in every direction, so a tile with relief standing up off it is measured to the top of the relief. Thick relief takes longer to dry than you think; a piece that is cool to the cheek is not dry.
Carve leather hard, not dry
Clay dust is silica and it does not leave your lungs. Leather hard carving makes curls. Bone dry carving makes dust that everyone at the table breathes. If a piece has gone dry, mist it and bag it rather than carving it, and wipe the table down wet when you finish.
Carve leather hard, not dry
Clay dust is silica, and silica in your lungs does not leave. Carving at leather hard makes curls and crumbs that fall on the table and get wiped up wet. Carving or sanding bone dry clay makes fine dust that hangs in the air, and a shared studio is the worst place to make it, because everyone breathes what you make. If a piece has dried too far, mist it, bag it and come back tomorrow. If you must work dry, a fitted respirator with P100 cartridges is the honest minimum, an N95 is a compromise, and neither is a reason to do it at a shared table. Wipe your table down with a wet sponge when you are done, never a dry brush.
Questions people actually ask
The ones that come up every week.
What is the difference between relief carving and sgraffito or mishima?
Relief changes the shape of the surface: parts of it stand higher than other parts. Sgraffito and mishima leave the surface flat and change its colour. You can combine them, and a wash wiped back over relief is one of the oldest tricks in the book, but relief on its own works with no colour at all, because it works on shadow.
Can I carve relief on a thrown pot?
Yes, if the wall is thick enough. Throw it heavier than usual where the carving will go, three eighths of an inch or more, and carve at leather hard from the outside. Or throw normally and add a carving layer: a thin slab scored and slipped onto the wall, carved instead of the wall itself. The vessel video on this page shows the whole thing on a round form.
How deep should relief be?
Deep enough to cast a shadow, which is less than you think. Two to three millimetres of drop between levels reads clearly on a tile under a lamp. Deeper is dramatic and costs wall thickness; deeper than about six millimetres on a pot needs a carving layer. Depth is spent, not free, so put it where the eye goes.
Do I need a damp box?
No, but you need patience. A relief piece is usually a two or three session project, and it has to stay leather hard between sessions. A plastic bag with a damp paper towel in it does the job for a week. If you carve a lot, our damp box lesson is the upgrade.
How do I keep relief tiles flat?
Even thickness where you can, slow drying between two boards, flipped daily, and a slab compressed with a rib on both faces before you carve. Relief tiles warp more than plain ones because the carving thins them unevenly. Our flat tiles lesson is the full method.
What glaze shows relief best?
Anything that pools in the low points and thins on the high points: celadons, translucent satins, honey and amber glazes, or a wash wiped back before a clear. Opaque glazes flatten it. Two coats, not three.
Should I add clay or take it away?
Both, and usually in that order. Adding is faster for big shapes and impossible to overdo: press on a pad of soft clay, blend the edges, and you have a raised form in a minute. Taking away is where the edges and the detail come from. Most good relief is a rough additive shape refined subtractively.
Related lessons
Six lessons that sit next to this one.
Three to read next.
Relief sits between hand building and surface decoration, and it borrows from both. These are the doors on either side.
That is the whole technique
Three levels. Outline, lower, model, detail, clean.
Your first relief will probably have a lumpy background and one edge you undercut because it looked good at the time. That is normal. The second one will have a toothpick with a mark on it and a plan with three levels, and it will look like something. Relief is patient work, and it rewards exactly the amount of patience you put in.
If you want the additive method, the drying rules, the glazing choices and the answers to the questions everybody asks, switch to the comprehensive version at the top. Otherwise, go roll a thick slab.
Written for potters everywhere. Where our studio does things differently, the page says so.
Which version would you like to print?
Both print clean, with the videos turned into labelled boxes you can search for later.