You would like painting pottery at home. There are various ways to do this, especially in the form of porcelain painting. Porcelain also belongs to the ceramic products, whereby it is a material that is characterised in particular by its ingredient kaolin, also called porcelain clay or porcelain clay.
Tools and materials for painting ceramics
The tools you can use to paint ceramics at home include, for example, pens, brushes, paints and stencils. You can buy all this yourself and order it to your home.
[Photo: Gabriele Senft, Source: Bundesarchiv/ Wikimedia Commons, Lizenz: CC BY-SA 3.0 de]
Porcelain paint pens and ceramic pens
Depending on what you want to paint at home, whether porcelain or ceramic, a distinction is also made between porcelain paint pens or ceramic pens, whereby there are numerous pens that can be used on both glazed porcelain and glazed ceramic.
Painting ceramics: Which paint?
When considering which paint or pen to use for painting ceramics, you should first consider what you want to use the painted objects for. For example, dishwasher-safe porcelain pens are available, but the paint is only dishwasher-safe after it has been baked in the oven. When washing in the dishwasher, you have to pay attention to the maximum washing temperature indicated on the respective pens; as a rule, 50 °C is indicated as the maximum temperature in the dishwasher. In any case, you should follow the instructions of the manufacturer of the respective product.
Porcelain paint and brushes
In addition to painting ceramics with a porcelain paint pen, you can also use so-called porcelain paint at home, which is applied to the glazed ceramics with a brush. For example, there is a product that is dishwasher-safe without baking, but the paint has to dry for three days before it is dishwasher-safe. Again, be careful not to set the temperature in the dishwasher too high, following the manufacturer’s instructions.
With a ceramic painting set at home, you can get started immediately, provided you also have a ceramic object to paint.
Porcelain brush pen
A compromise between porcelain painting pen and using a brush in combination with porcelain paint is to use a porcelain brush pen, which is a felt tip pen with a brush tip.
Painting ceramics at home is also a good idea for a child’s birthday party. Especially for children, it is a great experience to be able to express their creativity while painting porcelain.
Ceramic objects to paint
Ceramic objects that can be painted include, for example, the following:
- Bowl
- Vases
- Cup
- Plate
- Butter-dishes
- Jugs
Porcelain for painting
You can particularly buy white porcelain for painting, such as a porcelain cup:
However, there are other porcelain cups for painting, namely cups with saucers:
Ceramic painting of a bowl is also possible, and there are different sizes of bowls, also called dishes. Porcelain bowls (a subspecies of ceramics) for painting are available in sizes of about 330 ml (as dip bowls, dessert bowls, cereal bowls, snack bowls, soup bowls):
If you are looking for a larger porcelain (sub-type of ceramic) bowl to paint, you can also buy the 500 ml size (as a dessert bowl, cereal bowl, snack bowl, soup bowl):
And if this is still not enough, you can buy an even larger porcelain bowl to paint:
There are also ceramic plates that can be painted, including coup plates, dinner plates, salad plates, soup plates, dessert plates and breakfast plates:
Set of Porcelain markers
However, the porcelain or ceramic objects to be painted can not only be bought individually, but also in sets together with porcelain pens, including combinations of pens for porcelain and a cup, a piggy bank or four egg cups.
Ceramic painting ideas and inspiration
You are still lacking ideas on how to paint your ceramics easily. Below we list a few ideas, adding in square brackets in each case if they are simple ideas:
- Paint geometric patterns or shapes (circles, squares, triangles) [simple].
- Zigzag lines
- Painting floral patterns (for example, with flowers or flower parts)
- Spirals [simple]
- Lettering or single letters
- Painting dots on ceramics [simple]
- Painting strokes on the ceramic [simple]
- Faces as motifs
- Animals as motifs
- Landscapes (mountains, rivers, seashore) as motifs
In addition to cups or other dishes, it is also a nice idea to paint porcelain or ceramics on a ceramic tile, which you can then tile in the kitchen or bathroom, for example.
If you would like more ceramic painting ideas for ceramic design, take a look at these studio potteries..
Ceramic painting techniques
There are different techniques for painting pottey. For example, you can paint the ceramics freehand without any technical aids or you can use a stencil. Another technique is tracing templates onto the ceramic or porcelain piece. Here is an overview of the techniques for painting ceramics and porcelain, taking care to ensure that these techniques can also be used at home:
- Tracing (with tracing paper)
- Pre-drawing (e.g. with pencil)
- Stamping
- Dabbing
- Masking
- Sprinkling
- Stencils
- Scrape out
- Painting colours on top of each other
Painting ceramics with stencils
The technique of painting ceramics with stencils allows you to use a wide variety of motifs, from flower motifs to sea animal motifs to Christmas motifs. Letters can also be applied to the ceramics in the form of stencils. The advantage of using stencils is that the result looks very perfect and even.
If you want to paint a ceramic with flowers, you can also use stencils for this:
If you want to paint a ceramic with flowers, you can also use stencils for this:
A very special motif for painting ceramics is the dandelion; you can also use a stencil for this motif:
Or would you prefer a stencil with a unicorn? Then you can use the following stencils for your ceramics:
You can also use stencils to distribute dots evenly over the ceramic:
If you want to paint ceramics for Christmas, you can also use stencils with special Christmas motifs:
The best way to place lettering on a ceramic is to paint letters on the ceramic with a stencil:
Painting unglazed or glazed ceramics?
In addition to unglazed ceramics, you can also paint glazed ceramics. For the latter, there are special ceramic pens or porcelain painting pens.
The advantage of painting a unglazed ceramic is that the unglazed one is not glazed with paint until after it has been painted, so the paint is under the glaze and is therefore more protected. The disadvantage of painting from a unglazed one is that you have no opportunity to correct it if you make a mistake. It is different when painting glazed ceramics or glazed porcelain. Here you can usually still correct mistakes as long as you have not yet baked the paint on the painted ceramic in the kiln by placing the painted piece there.
The paints for unglaced ceramic or porcelain are different from those used for glazed ceramics or glazed porcelain.
And finally, there is the option of permanently painting unglazed ceramics in the form of terracotta with special ceramic pens.
Painting ceramics: Instructions
In the following, we give you instructions on how to paint ceramics. Before you start painting, you should clean the surface to be painted. The surface should be free of dust, grease and detergents.
Some paint manufacturers also offer special cleaners for cleaning before painting; however, these are not suitable for children. Here, too, one should pay attention to the instructions of the manufacturer of the ceramics and the paint when it comes to the question of what the ceramics should be cleaned with before painting.
If you want to make corrections, you should have a cotton swab at hand with which you can remove the incorrectly applied paint. Here, too, the Marabu company, for example, recommends using its own cleaner on the cotton bud, although this cleaner is not suitable for children. Incidentally, you should pay attention to the manufacturer’s instructions, both for the ceramic and the paint, when it comes to the question of which cleaner can be used to remove paint that has already been applied.
Do not paint the surfaces of plates that are used for cutting, for example, as the painting will rub off. The drinking rim of a cup should also not be painted. Marabu advises against both with regard to its “Marabu Porcelain” paints,, “as the paint is not approved for direct food contact.” The Marabu Porcelain paint instructions can also be found on the Marabu website Marabu Porcelain Paint Instructions.