Studio Tips: glazing, underglaze, and in-glaze

[Pres]

Hi folks,

Today I was working on the Wedding Jar that I had made for a nephew, and was trying to accent their lettering for names and dates. I had stamped these in, but it was not quite clear so I cleaned them up and added a stain over top thinking to do a little mishima to bring the letters up. However, due to the curved surface I lost some of the letter forms. What to do. I used a small brush after engraving the missing areas to flow the glaze in, and that worked. At the same time I decided to use the brush with a white engobe to accent the flowers of the mountain laurel I had stamped into the form. 

My tip for the day though is much simpler. I had problems with getting the right amount of slip or stain on to the fine bristled brush. I tried a lot of different techniques and then tried to dip a sponge brush into the container of slip or stain and lay it over the top of the container loading the brush up from that. It worked perfectly with just the right amount of stain or slip to work into the brush and keep the fine work when painting on the pot.

I was an art teacher, working with a lot of media, especially watercolor, acrylic, and inks. This technique I had never heard of, but it would work well with almost any media to keep from overloading a brush.

 

So. . .. do any of you have some technique that would work well with the use of stains, underglazes, glazes, even if brushing, spraying, or other technique? Post it here, it would be great to hear from you.

 

best,

Pres

[Mark C.]

For text work in letters I use a small squeeze bottle with the glaze or stain and fill the letter voids-far less clean up and messing with things-then I wax over them for glazing.

[LeeU]

A triple or double zero "spotting brush" for photography retouching (used for manual prints, to fill-in minute voids left by dust on a lens.) This for fine line work or narrow letters-not wide areas.

[yappystudent]

I recently discovered that (Sheet) vinyl flooring makes great easy to cut stamps for making impressions, not so much for picking up color, but I'll be putting color into them and wiping back like Pres mentioned in the topic. With scissors I was able to cut out this in about 20 min with only one boo-boo I had to fix. So far it's working great for stamping clay, and reasonably well for cloth using craft paint. 

Use thin plastic wrap, better yet those clear plastic produce bags from the grocery store over the clay or the vinyl tends to stick toit. 

 

Edited May 24, 2018 by yappystudent

[dhPotter]

So you cut the, I'll call it a" scorpion" , out of the vinyl flooring then you glued it to another piece of vinyl flooring?

 

[Joy pots]

I cut out stencils from thick tablecloth vinyl & use iron oxide to stamp.  I use a tub with folded jersey cloth for a pad to keep the amounts of oxide  just right for a stamping  foam brush the pad allows the oxide to fill the stamping tool but not too much.  I stamp on top of a glazes  as control of the oxide is essential,  too little & the stamp fires faded too much & it is dark & messy.  I periodically add water with a small squirt bottle for moisture.

joy

[yappystudent]

6 hours ago, dhPotter said:

So you cut the, I'll call it a" scorpion" , out of the vinyl flooring then you glued it to another piece of vinyl flooring?

 

Yes that's exactly. originally I wanted the brine shrimp not be attached to anything, but it was too fiddly and one of it's ribs got cut off, so basically I made a rubber stamp out of it to glue the rib in place. It should have nice sharp edges for a long time. I used aquarium silicone to attach it to the backing; more vinyl; which worked great, then glued the whole thing to a small flooring tile because I didn't have a piece of wood the right size. Voila, prototype. I smeared craft paint on a plastic plate, twirled the stamp around in it and stamped it onto to a damp piece of fabric. Worked not so well on dry fabric. Anyway, I'll be using this idea again but without the backing attached it should work better in future for clay.  The sheet vinyl -not the hard 'tile' type flooring- cut super easy. I went into a flooring store I get my flooring tile remnants from and they were happy to give me a scrap. 

Edited May 24, 2018 by yappystudent

[oldlady]

thank you , yappy, for the aquarium silicone suggestion!   i need to glue my shoes together again and there is just no good way to do it.  yes, i will glue some sponge to dowels for claywork but i really need to fix about 6 pair of shoes.    bad foot means only one kind fits but they fall apart after a week or so.

[yappystudent]

On 5/28/2018 at 8:43 PM, oldlady said:

thank you , yappy, for the aquarium silicone suggestion!   i need to glue my shoes together again and there is just no good way to do it.  yes, i will glue some sponge to dowels for claywork but i really need to fix about 6 pair of shoes.    bad foot means only one kind fits but they fall apart after a week or so.

Birkenstocks, just sayin': My last pair of leather Arizona's lasted 7 yrs and I wore them (nearly) every day including at work, in the rain, etc. Yes, I wear socks with sandals. They will cost you but it's cheaper than replacing shoes every year. They form to your feet.  I wear the classic  kind with no heel strap but they make lots that do have them now. Once you start wearing them they are addictive and your feet won't want to go back. 

[LeeU]

Crocs!!! Classic clogs w/back strap. Luciously comfortable, long lasting, inexpensive (go for the sales).  I paid a little more and scored myself a Limited Edition of Jackson Pollack Studio clogs--how very artsy of me LOL

[JohnnyK]

On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 6:29 PM, LeeU said:

A triple or double zero "spotting brush" for photography retouching (used for manual prints, to fill-in minute voids left by dust on a lens.) This for fine line work or narrow letters-not wide areas.

Seriously, Lee....a spotting brush?! It brings back memories of my stint in a professional Freelance Photographers school in Sacramento in 1980 and the hours spent retouching the Black & White photos> I still use those skills today as you do for the fine lines and spotting necessary for various art applications...

JohnnyK

[LeeU]

I was the Spotter for Modernage Labs in NYC in the late '60s, spotting high quality mural prints for the museums and lottsa other cool stuff (& silver prints).  Still have some discarded (or so they thought LOL) prints of historic photos of  subjects like Jack Johnson (boxer), pics by "Weegee", right after he died, and the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. The night crew was me, my x-hubby--he was a developer/printer extrordinaire--and a United Nations assortment of Chinese, Armenians, Polish, Germans, etc. Lemme tell ya---the bring-a-dish parties on the 4-12 shift were awesome! So was the bootleg Chinese whiskey, at 200 proof.  My "ex" ended up losing a quarter of a lung due in part to the formaldehyde (and the insane amount of roach spray we were subject to in our little downtown NY apartments).  Wow--Johnny-did you spark some memories! 

[Pres]

I have moved/merged the posts dealing with Lusters to Working with Lusters. I will leave it in the Studio Operations and Making Work area.

 

 

best,

Pres

[Mark C.]

Pres-My squeeze bottle has a metal tip

you can see the results on this photo post on this thread-the surface is also curved .

 

[Pres]

Mark,

Nice work, squeeze bottle looks like it works very well. Another option for folks out there. Thanks for posting. . . .now post a pic of the squeeze bottle. Love the iron rich glaze. I used to use a spodumene that looked similar.

 

 

best,

Pres

[Theresa Buckner]

Does anyone know if you can fire a piece of ceramics that I primed with GESSO?

[Dick White]

8 minutes ago, Theresa Buckner said:

Does anyone know if you can fire a piece of ceramics that I primed with GESSO?

I have not tried that specifically, but my general knowledge of ceramic glazes is that would not work. The raw glaze needs to adhere to the surface of the ceramic body, and if there is anything in between, such as dirt, dust, oily residue from fingers, stray wax from the bottom, etc., the glaze will shrink back from that dirty spot as it melts. I would think the gesso will do the same.

[Bill Kielb]

1 hour ago, Theresa Buckner said:

Does anyone know if you can fire a piece of ceramics that I primed with GESSO?

Gesso is basically white paint to seal canvass, it will burn off in the kiln. 

[Tomccv]

I hope I got the gist of this thread correctly or my question might seem off topic. 
I like to sketch images on my white bisque ware with underglaze, refine to set the UG and fire a transparent glaze over the top in the next glaze firing. It requires three firings to get the job done but results in a very pretty pot. And very popular...

It requires me to have the ability to put some very fine and precise lines on the pot and I am getting this done with some small squeeze bottles that have a syringe tip. I am getting the result I like but with difficulty. Sometimes the underglaze comes forth too freely. If I’m quick I move quickly and don’t get a blotch. Other times things are going just fine when the underglaze quits feeding.  I squeeze and get nothing until suddenly...  Well you get the idea. If it would feed reliably it would work perfectly.  But it doesn’t.  

I can’t be the only potter that’s doing this.  I love the result. The images really pop. If you went through a phase like this and was successful, what did you use?

Im not really frustrated but I’d like this to be easier.  Any suggestions welcome.  
Thanks

Tom

 

 

 

[Bill Kielb]

You can also paint, very finely might I add. Got tired of using the squeeze bottles unless absolutely necessary. With practice, most anything can be done. Adding China paint later gives more opportunities to accent as well

Edited January 7, 2021 by Bill Kielb

[Min]

Mishima technique is good for fine lines. Scratch the fine lines into leather hard clay then flood the incised lines with underglaze or slip. When the u.g. or slip has dried scrape it back to leave it in the lines, a flexible metal rib works well for this. Other way you can do it is to apply a water based wax resist to the leather hard clay then scratch the lines through and flood with underglaze. Let it set up then sponge off excess from wax. (Forbes wax works well for this method)

[Tomccv]

On 1/6/2021 at 10:12 PM, Bill Kielb said:

You can also paint, very finely might I add. Got tired of using the squeeze bottles unless absolutely necessary. With practice, most anything can be done. Adding China paint later gives more opportunities to accent as welL

Bill, your photos show beautiful work but that’s not what I’m doing.  I need finer lines than that and your assertion that I could use a brush and “with practice” is ....well, insulting. Do you think I didn’t try a brush?  A brush is only a tool and all tools have their limitations. 

[Tomccv]

On 1/6/2021 at 10:44 PM, Min said:

Mishima technique is good for fine lines. Scratch the fine lines into leather hard clay then flood the incised lines with underglaze or slip. When the u.g. or slip has dried scrape it back to leave it in the lines, a flexible metal rib works well for this. Other way you can do it is to apply a water based wax resist to the leather hard clay then scratch the lines through and flood with underglaze. Let it set up then sponge off excess from wax. (Forbes wax works well for this method)

Thanks Min   
I have read about this technique and did do something similar when I first embarked on this course. I usually have to work it like a sketch, though and remove, reshape and retry until I get it right. I do this just like I I would in my sketchbook and then go over it with the underglaze.   Works very well except for the problem I already posted. I guess, if my drawing skills were up to it I might try your suggestion again.  But my skills, although they are always improving aren’t up there yet. 
 
Thanks for your reply. 
T

[Bill Kielb]

5 hours ago, Tomccv said:

use a brush and “with practice” is ....well, insulting. Do you think I didn’t try a brush?

Hmm, sorry, didn’t mean to imply anything other than very fine brushwork is possible as well as depth and precision. Just a possibility, not meant as an assessment in any way.  Just meant as some more ideas that may or may not interest you. Your conclusion “any suggestions welcome” was taken as such.

sorry again.

Edited January 11, 2021 by Bill Kielb

[LaurelB]

On 1/6/2021 at 9:12 PM, Tomccv said:

Things are going just fine when the underglaze quits feeding.  I squeeze and get nothing until suddenly...  

Have you tried screening the underglaze before adding it to the bottle?  Getting rid of any lumps might help.