painted decoration
Janet H Walker
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...WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO "WATERCOLOR" PAINT ON CLAY...
Hi Grace. I paint watercolors on paper. Lately I've been trying to
paint on clay too. I have some questions first. Is there some
effect you are looking for and not getting? Like wet-on-wet
effects? Or is this a process thing along the lines of "I can't get
this stuff to come off the brush"?
I have no idea about things like wet-on-wet. The closest relative
is maybe mocha-ware where dark acidic oxide diffuses into wet white
slip! (Actually, this is more like a "bloom" than like wet on wet!)
But for actual painting results, I'll share where I am now, which
isn't very far along but might be going in a promising direction.
At worst, it will make you feel like you already know a lot by
comparison...
- Brushes. As with actual watercolor painting, having the magic
brush seems to be crucial. Big brushes don't work (big fat lines
and messy edges to strokes). Go much smaller than seems reasonable.
Recently I got the smallest size calligraphy brush at Pearl and a #2
Winsor & Newton Sceptre Gold series 101. This has been for painting
on and with slip and Mason stains.
- I paint onto leatherhard clay with slips and onto slip with Mason
stains. White slip is an all-over thing so it goes onto the
leatherhard clay with a wide hake held at a very acute angle to the
clay in order to minimize the brushstrokes you get with the hake
held straight up. (Maybe you want those, sometimes they look nice.)
When the slip has set up to the point where it doesn't smear, I'll
paint onto it with colored slips and the small brushes. With the
underlying surface being fairly damp, the slip goes on smoothly.
These slips are opaque though. If you're after a more transparent
(uh, watercolor) look, the Mason stain might be the thing to try. I
suspend a teaspoon of Mason stain in a roughly similar amount of CMC
liquid (30 g of CMC powder added to 1 litre of HOT water and left
for two days to go into suspension). The CMC keeps the color from
drying quickly. Mason stains can be mixed for different colors,
either on a palette or on the piece. And you can soften the edges
of a color patch already on the piece.
This description may sound pitiful to those out there who are really
good at this painting stuff. But this is where I've gotten to and
it feels actually a little like painting. Long way to go. Would
love to hear some other detailed confessions.
Best,
Jan Walker
Cambridge MA USA
Grace Liu
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Hi jan and tracey,
Appreciate the tips on "watercolor" painting on pots. Actually, it was
someone else on Clayart who asked the more specific question on
techniques on how to get the watercolor effect. I've just been following
this topic on the forum for the past couple weeks.
Just to re-iterate a previous note, for those of you interested in this
topic, there is a book "Watercolor on Porcelain". Not sure whether the
techniques in this book are just limited to porcelain (can'[t imagine
why it would be). I personally don't have the book yet. Apparently it's
hard to find, but you can contact Steve Branfman at sbran...@aol.com.
He has stock.
My experience with painted decoration is limited. I've done on-glaze
decoration (cone 015) where I add different types of oil-based medium to
powder colorants to achieve a more translucent color effect & to enable
blending of colors directly on the (glaze-fired, white body) pot. It's
not quite the real watercolor effect which you see on paper, but I think
the advantage over painting on leatherhard clay is that you can get
clearer & finer details with on-glazes. But that may not be what you
want.
Hope some of this might be of interest toyou.
best regards,
Grace