Skill Level: Beginner

You will need

• Terracotta or ceramic pot
• Washi tape or Masking tape
• Posca paint pens or Acrylic paints and paintbrushes
• Optional: Template sheet [download here]
• Blu-Tac, scissors, pencil

To make

1. Choose your colour palette for your pots. This tutorial shows you a multi-coloured design but also a one colour design, it is totally up to you how many you use. Templates have been provided too if you’re not comfortable with freehand drawing.

Using the tape, begin to apply it to the pot, masking off large shapes that you can fill with colour. You will need to make sure the tape is pressed hard on to the ceramic to ensure no paint escapes through the gaps, work the tape over the pot to create different sized shapes.

2. Take your first colour and begin colouring in one of the shapes, you may like to start with the largest shape first to get used to the paint pens.

3. Paint the other shapes with your chosen colours, working around the pot. Be careful as you apply the paint and hold the pot to ensure that the paint is drying.

4. Now it is the fun part, remove the washi tape to reveal your base geometric shapes. You could create a design just using this technique however it is also fun to add some looser shapes.

5. Create waved scallop shapes from the top and bottom of the pot and colour in.

6. In another colour of paint, add abstract shapes on the pot. If you are using the templates provided, they can be cut out and stuck to the pot with blu-tac so you can trace around them.

7. With your paint pen, add dots over the colours that have already dried.

8. These techniques can also be applied with one colour on terracotta pots. A white on terracotta gives a lovely ‘Scandi’ look.

Project by Becki Clark -  www.beckiclark.com

Becki is a creative designer inspired by the wonders of nature and seasonal changes. She has illustrated and designed surface patterns and designs for cards, wrapping paper and stationery, which have been sold by large retailers in the UK. Becki's work has also been used in magazines and she regularly runs workshops teaching Brush Lettering and Botanical Illustration. Her new book "Modern Brush Lettering'" was published in August 2020.