The Girls

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Guinea Pig art, pottery, Pottery and Ceramics, Pottery Surface Design, , Leave a Comment on The Girls

I was commissioned to make a plate festooned with a picture of The Girls by the same guys I made these hats for. The Girls, in case you couldn’t tell, are guinea pigs.

I made drawings in Procreate from some pictures the boys sent me and transferred them to the plates.

I’m working on terracotta with slips and underglazes.

The pigs in outline.

I was really getting into it before I remembered that I know bupkis about painting fur, much less Guinea Pig fur. Still, I persisted.

I have a backup plate in case the first one doesn’t survive the glaze firing. We’ll see!

Rowhouses

By: ornamento.blog
Art, majolica, Philadelphia History, pottery, Pottery and Ceramics, , , Leave a Comment on Rowhouses

I am still experimenting with surface treatments on pottery. This week, I found inspiration in my own backyard. Philadelphia is a city of rowhouses, from multi-million dollar mansions on Delancey Place to more modest homes in the Northeast. I live in a rowhouse in South Philadelphia.

Here’s a plate in progress, with houses, trees, and a sidewalk.

Here’s the top of yet another butter dish. This one’s majolica and it took me forever to draw the houses on all four sides.


Another view. The handle is meant to be clouds. I hope this comes out of the firing without too many flaws. Majolica glaze can be finicky.

The bottom part is meant to be the sidewalk.

Rowhouses are cozy and fuel efficient. You are living close to your neighbors, so you learn to get along. If you want to learn more about row houses, check out the Philadelphia Rowhouse Manual.

Butterfingers!

By: ornamento.blog
Art, majolica, pottery, Pottery and Ceramics, , , Leave a Comment on Butterfingers!

I’ve been busy making butter dishes lately, much like my foray into teapots a few years ago.  I decided to try upping my game with Majolica glaze. Majolica pottery, for the uninitiated, is traditionally made from a white, tin-based white glaze used on terra cotta clay, and decorated with glazes over the white glaze.

Here’s a picture of a butter dish that I made from terracotta using the tar paper technique. I show the process here.

Here are a couple of butter dishes after bisque firing. The third butter dish isn’t Majolica; it’s white earthenware with low fire glazes.

Majolica is also a low fire glaze. We fire at cone 06. The above picture is the butter dish top dipped into the Majolica glaze. You are supposed to dip the entire piece in one fell swoop and let it dry without trying to touch up any wet runs or drips. After the glaze is dry, you can smooth out imperfections with your finger, but it’s best not to have them at all. The glaze will not run in firing and hide any goofs. You will see every imperfection which is why you want to make sure the glaze surface is as close to perfect as possible.

The fact that Majolica glaze does not move in firing might seem like a curse, but it is also a blessing. The overglazes you use to decorate stay where you put them. You have a lot more control over the finished product if you know what you’re doing. Something I don’t claim to know.

Here’s a finished butter dish. I have some little pinholes in my finished glaze. I think that’s because I didn’t have a thick enough coat of the Majolica glaze.

So, I’m still a bit of a butterfingers when it comes to Majolica glazing. But I’m learning!

Butter Dishes

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Ceramics, Design, pottery, Pottery and Ceramics, pottery studio tips, , , , Leave a Comment on Butter Dishes

I’ve paused making mugs in order to tackle making butter dishes.

First, I made a template out of tar paper for the top of the dish.

The tar paper technique lets you build with slabs while they are still malleable. You can build lots of interesting shapes rather quickly.

I made the bottom from a wet slab using a board and foam. Here’s a video showing the technique. Then I added a handle.

Then I decorated the top with some underglaze transfers I screen printed onto newsprint paper.

Here is the decorated butter dish ready for bisque firing.

Ceramic Surface Design

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Ceramics, pottery, Pottery and Ceramics, screen printing, , 2 Comments on Ceramic Surface Design

It’s time for another trip down the rabbit hole. I have been dabbling in ceramic surface design on and off for a number of years. You can see some examples here and here. I have been interested in screen printing on ceramic clay. (I got started with screen printing with polymer clay, and wrote a couple of articles on how to burn your own screens for Polymer Cafe Magazine, now out of print.)

I am still interested in screen printing on ceramic clay and have read a lot of articles on the subject. There is a lot more information available now than when I first started. A lot of the early articles threw around terminology without clear explanations. (One that especially galled me was referring to the screen printing medium used on pottery as “ink” without an explanation of the composition of this so-called ink. Not helpful by any stretch of the imagination.)

My current fascination is ceramic decals. As usual, I am more interested in making my own decals than in buying someone else’s designs. The technique basically involves putting a design on newsprint or rice paper with underglaze or another substance that will withstand firing, and transferring it to a pot. There are different types of decals and many ways of making them. I wanted something that was low tech, that could withstand a cone 04 firing, and that used readily available relatively inexpensive materials.

I discovered a video and a tutorial by potter and teacher Kate Missett. They were just what I am looking for! She gives clear, concise directions and doesn’t leave out information that might be useful (like what side of the rice paper to use.)

You can see my first efforts in the pictures below. First, I mixed up some red and black “ceramic ink” for which Missett actually gives the formula, and tried the technique out on newsprint.

Here’s a bare, leather hard pot, the decal (the colors will appear in reverse order on the pot) and the decal applied to the pot.

Here’s the pot after I removed the decal. I decided to put another design on the pot which didn’t transfer so well, but I was able to touch it up. As is usual for me, my first efforts turned out better than my later attempts. I have a long way to go, but I am already enjoying this technique very much!

More Cats in the Pottery Studio

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Cats, Ceramics, pottery, Pottery and Ceramics, , , Leave a Comment on More Cats in the Pottery Studio

These three cats are on one mug. I don’t know if they would get along in the real world.

I think this puss would get along with anyone. Well, maybe not a d*g, but who knows?

You Can Do a Lot With Lines and Dots

By: ornamento.blog
Art, pottery, Pottery and Ceramics, pottery studio tips, , , Leave a Comment on You Can Do a Lot With Lines and Dots

Wondering how to decorate your pottery with slip? Make a ton of bowls and experiment! I’ve been decorating small terra cotta bowls with slip and commercial underglaze. I have a lot of bowls to screw up, but my hand is getting steadier and steadier. That’s what practice will do.

I got the needle-tipped squeeze bottles from Amazon. I used to store them with straight pins in the tip. I don’t recommend it. The tips clog and the pins rust. Instead, remove and clean the tips when you are finished and store the bottles with the sealing caps that come with the set. I can’t believe how much easier this makes them to use.

I used some donuts I cut with my Silhouette Portrait 3 in this bowl. Dots and lines followed.

I used a Mayco Designer Liner for the black outline in the above bowl. I will cover these bowls with clear glaze after they come out of the bisque fire. It’s low fire pottery, so they will be fired at Cone 04. Now I just have to come up with ideas for the rest of the bowls!

Adventures in Using a Die Cutter in the Pottery Studio

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Die Cutting machines, pottery, Pottery and Ceramics, Silhouette, , Leave a Comment on Adventures in Using a Die Cutter in the Pottery Studio

i am the happy owner of a Silhouette Portrait 3 die cutting machine. What does a Silhouette Portrait do? It cuts materials like vinyl and sticker paper into any shape you can think of. I am not interested in making stickers or greeting cards. I want to design and cut shapes to use for ceramic surface decoration with slips and glazes. and to make templates for polymer clay shapes.

Here’s my first foray into decorating pottery.

I started with some greenware terracotta mugs I threw on a pottery wheel.

That’s my Silhouette Portrait 3. It’s the smallest of the Silhouette die cutting machines and the least expensive. I work small and didn’t want a big machine. I bought it on Poshmark, of all places. You can find more than clothes on Poshmark and I have been very happy with my purchases there so far. My Portrait 3 was new in the box and my savings were considerable. Another great resource is videos by Design Bundles on YouTube. From there, I learned about sources for less expensive supplies and accessories to use with the Silhouette. Plus a lot of tips and tricks for using my die cutting machine.

I am interested in making my own designs rather than buying them. So I have been fooling around with Vectornator, which is a vector-based graphic design software. Vectornator is free and I use it on a iPad. (Procreate, which is a raster-based program, is another option.)

I’m totally new to the software but I’ve been having fun with it, drawing simple shapes which I save as png files and send to my computer which is connected to the Portrait 3. One of the problems I have found with learning to use Vectornator and the Portrait 3 is that most of the written explanations start in the middle, and assume a lot of knowledge. But if you are patient and watch a lot of videos, you will get the hang of it. And watch Design Bundles’ videos.

Above is a flower motif I drew on my iPad and loaded into the Silhouette software. I am using the basic software that comes with the machine because it accepts png files without the need to upgrade.

To use the Silhouette, you line a cutting mat with whatever material you will be cutting ( I used copier paper above), and the machine cuts out your design. The beauty is that you don’t have to be good with scissors and that you can cut as many flowers, circles, shapes, stencils, or what have you as you need. You can save your designs in computer files and access them whenever you need.

Here’s my first few projects. I painted and screen printed greenware with underglaze. (I made my silkscreens previously with a photo bulb and emulsion, but you can make screens for printing with the Silhouette. )

I wet the shapes with water, adhered them to the mug after the underglaze had dried, painted over them with a contrasting color of underglaze and carefully peeled them off.

Here’s the same thing on a different mug. Note that I am using scrap paper to make the cutouts. it works fine. Newsprint is too thin and a nightmare to peel off the cutting mat.

After bisque firing, I coated the mugs with glossy clear for the glaze fire. Some interesting results. I will definitely be trying more surface designs with this technique.

New Mugs at Fleisher Handmade Art Market

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Fleisher Art Memorial, handmade for the holidays, Pottery and Ceramics, , , Leave a Comment on New Mugs at Fleisher Handmade Art Market

Here are pictures of a few of the mugs I’ll be offering at this years’ Handmade Art Market at Fleisher Art Memorial. If you live in Philadelphia (or are visiting) catch me and the other Open Studio potters.

See more work from the Studio Potters gang on my Instagram account here, here, and here.