using parian as engobe?

[LOWBAE Ceramics]

Has anyone tried using parian porcelain slip as an engobe before? I'm doing a project on layering coloured parian, it's so fragile as greenware that if I can apply the slip after firing it'll make my life so much easier. Thanks in advance!

[High Bridge Pottery]

You will be much better off painting on the coloured slip when the clay is leather hard. If you paint it onto bisque it will probably crack and fall off, I tried this recently and you can see from the results that painting onto leather hard clay was much more successful that onto bisque. There is probably some way to get it to work but it is much easier to paint onto leather hard as they are both shrinking at the same rate.

 

You might get better results so probably worth testing as parian porcelain is much more glaze like than my clay. Looking at a few recipes there's only 20% kaolin clay in the parian instead of 60% ball clay in my slip.  

 

 

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by High Bridge Pottery

[Callie Beller Diesel]

I’ve never done it personally, but I’ve seen tutorials about painting parts (or all) of the plaster mould with a layer of coloured slip and letting it set up a little before pouring the “main” casting slip. It allows you to just use a coloured version of the slipcasting body of your choice to decorate, and it’s thoroughly integrated into the piece. 

[PeterH]

Some eye-candy and tips on slip-cast multi-layer work - but for bone china rather than parian ware.
Multi-Colored Casting in Tempting Transparency
https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/pottery-making-illustrated/pottery-making-illustrated-article/Tempting-Transparency#

Some examples of Sasha Wardell's  work at http://www.strathearn-gallery.com/artists/435/sasha--wardell

PS Can you use setters with parian ware? It might be useful if you could.

Edited February 25, 2023 by PeterH