Jump to content

How Many Water Colors Besides Cobalt Withstand Firing?


jrgpots

Recommended Posts

Long time ago when I was working with paint I made swash marks on a test pieces for all the paints I had in my paint box - water, acrylic, and oils - even some house paint. It was a way to overcome boredom in painting class.

They were fired to cone 10 reduction on the clay de jour. Some left no color effect, many did but not what I expected.  Before doing a second round of testing, I looked carefully at the technical specifications for each paint available from my local supplier. Many pigments have organ-metallic compounds as colorants.

 

The key is to compare the metallic elements in the pigments with the metallic elements common to glazes.  Then you can make reasonable predictions to color outcome.  I zeroed in on iron and cobalt based paints for making controlled marks because they were economic and reliable for that purpose.  Other elements would make marks but were not interesting to me, or were very faint for my application technique.

 

I did learn that using acrylic or water colors to get blue all over a large vase is more expensive than making or buying glazes. But using paints to produce landscapes on sculpture is probably worth it.

It is fun to experiment, and the successes can lead to some really cool techniques that are useful. 

LT

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Professional quality water color paints will list the source ingredients. Chrome, iron (many forms), chrome-tin, cobalt (some forms), manganese, and cadmium will come up. Some pigments are derived from plants; madder is a red-pink dye for example.

 

Of course to get light turquoise with cobalt titanate, different conditions may be needed. And at more than $10 for 5 ml, I'm not overly willing to experiment!

 

The paint spectrum could be a place to start a search from. It should be possible to produce a brilliant purple with manganese phosphate for example.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.