When my friend and I went to a pottery painting studio to paint a pair of statues for their nursery, I was both excited and nervous for painting pottery with low vision. I was excited because I had memories of going to this studio back in elementary school for summer camps and designing beautiful items that remain in my room to this day, but nervous because my vision has changed a lot over the years and I had no idea if the item would turn out looking terrible. At the end of the day, I ended up having a ton of fun painting and creating something special for the nursery that would be enjoyed for years to come. Here are my tips for painting pottery with low vision in casual settings or at paint-your-own-pottery studios.
First, feel the shape of the item
When selecting a pottery piece to paint, it helps to look for items with strong tactile features (raised edges, distinct sections, or geometric shapes) rather than smooth, rounded forms where the boundaries between areas are harder to detect by touch. One of the things that helped me with figuring out how I would paint the fox statue was feeling the shape of the item so that I could visualize where I could paint, the location and size of features such as the eyes and nose, and how I could alternate colors accordingly. We ended up choosing geometric foxes because they had sharp lines and ridges, making it easy to alternate colors and distinguish the different sides of the fox.
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Ensure adequate lighting
Lighting is one of the most important factors when putting together accessible art activities with low vision, especially activities that involve painting. Good task lighting aimed directly at the work surface makes a significant difference, but it is important to position the light so it illuminates the pottery without creating glare.
Daylight-colored LED bulbs tend to render colors more accurately than warm-toned bulbs, which can make it easier to distinguish paint colors in the tray and on the piece. If the studio’s overhead lighting is insufficient, bringing a small clip-on task lamp or head lamp can be useful for providing hands-free lighting options that can be positioned in a specific area.
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Put the item on a high-contrast surface
When painting flat items such as tiles, it can be difficult for people with low vision to distinguish the off-white unpainted tile on top of the off-white table. For this reason, it helps to have a high-contrast surface to paint on, such as a colored table or a textured surface like a drop cloth underneath the pottery item being painted. When possible, avoid newspaper or other visually complex/patterned surfaces that can be distracting or can contribute to visual fatigue.
Contrast is defined as the difference of color that makes an object (or the foreground) visible against a background of a different color, with a contrast ratio showing the luminance of the brightest shade to the darkest shade. For low vision, high contrast color schemes may involve limited color palettes or removing non-essential colors, while other high contrast color schemes simply make colors easier to see against different backgrounds. I typically gravitate towards light-colored items and working on dark-colored surfaces, mostly because I am nervous about staining light-colored surfaces when working with messy materials like paint.
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Preview colors using large swatches that are easier to see
The small color swatches for previewing paint colors can be difficult to see, especially if they are glued down to a shelf. The pottery place I went to had larger color swatches available on request, either in the form of large tiles or showing the paint color on one of the example pottery pieces. Another option is to look up the paint colors online, though there may be some difference in the actual colors depending on the display resolution.
For an extra layer of confidence when identifying colors, many visual assistance apps like Seeing AI offer color identification features; users can point their smartphone camera at a paint container or swatch to hear the color name spoken aloud. These offer similar functionality to handheld color identifiers, which are devices that announce color names and light intensity.
Related links
- Choosing Paint Colors For Low Vision
- How I Use Microsoft Seeing AI With Low Vision
- All About Visual Assistance Apps For Visually Impaired
Use bright/saturated colors whenever possible
While pastel colors are popular, I find it much easier to work with bright, saturated colors that contrast against each other. While the paint colors will appear less vivid before varnish is added and the pottery is fired, the colors will still be easier to work with than lighter paint colors, plus they will likely be easier to see in the paint tray.
Choosing colors that contrast strongly with one another (rather than colors that are close in hue or value) also makes it easier to see where one painted section ends and another begins. A color palette app like Coolors can help with planning a palette before arriving at the studio.
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Identify brushes by touch or use labels
Pottery studios typically offer a range of brush sizes, from wide flat brushes for covering large areas to fine-tipped brushes for detail work. Rather than trying to read small labels or squint at brush sizes, feeling the bristles is a reliable way to tell them apart; a wide, flat brush feels very different from a fine round brush, and a large brush has noticeably more bristles than a small one. Another option is to add color-coded tape labels around brushes or use brushes with different colored handles; one of my friends would put washi tape around brushes to tell them apart by color, which was helpful when multiple brushes were sitting in paint water.
Keeping brushes organized in a consistent spot on the table and arranged from largest to smallest makes it easier to reach for the right one without having to re-examine each brush every time. When working with multiple brushes, I also used separate paint water containers so that I didn’t have to keep touching a wet brush.
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- How To Organize and Identify Cords For Low Vision
- Apple Pencil Customizations For Writing With Low Vision
Take note of how long it takes paint to dry
It can be hard to tell whether paint is wet or dry just by looking at it, so it helps to ask pottery staff how long it takes for paint to dry before doing another coat or adding another color. When my friend and I went to paint pottery, they told us to wait about seven minutes for paint to completely dry, so we would set a timer to make sure we didn’t touch the wet paint before then; we would set timers to vibrate on our phones using tools like Siri or the default clock/timer app that supported large print.
Use tape and other guides to assist with painting
One of the pottery staff members suggested that I use painter’s tape as a guide when painting the geometric fox, and I discovered this was a game changer for painting straight lines and avoiding unwanted color splotching, though I still had a small amount of splotching in some areas. I would put the tape around areas such as the face or legs so that I could paint straight lines, waiting for paint to dry before putting the tape on another area.
Beyond painter’s tape, other physical guides can be helpful. Rubber bands stretched around a piece can create a tactile boundary between sections. For tiles or flat pieces, a ruler or straight edge can serve as a guide for keeping brushstrokes even. The key is to use anything that creates a physical boundary that can be felt, not just seen.
Related links
- Digital Rulers For Dysgraphia and Low Vision
- How To Create Tactile Images With Everyday Objects
- No-Tech Solutions For Drawing Graphs With Low Vision And Dysgraphia
Make sure items can’t be easily knocked over
This may seem obvious, but when I attended a pottery camp when I was younger, it was difficult for me to see the unpainted pottery items on the table and I often came close to knocking items over just because they were difficult to see. For this reason, it is important to make sure items are not too close to the edge of the table or in a place where they can be knocked over by someone washing a paintbrush or grabbing a bottle of paint.
Keeping the workspace organized and consistent also helps a lot when painting pottery with low vision. Placing paint pots, brushes, and water cups in the same spots throughout the session means less reaching and searching, which reduces the chance of accidentally bumping into the pottery piece.
Other tips for painting pottery with low vision
- If painting with a brush is difficult, ask about doing a special technique such as the bubble technique to cover the entire item in an interesting pattern.
- For those with dexterity issues, wrapping a hair curler around a brush can make it easier to grasp.
- Since unpainted pottery can be difficult to see on a shelf, looking up available pottery items at the studio online to read descriptions beforehand is a helpful way to plan.
- Pottery pieces with textured or raised decoration such as stamped patterns or applied clay details can be a great option for those who find purely painted designs difficult, since the texture itself becomes part of the design.
Published August 30, 2020. Updated January 2026