After the Fire

[akirlu]

So one of the things I did for my birthday was go off and try the whole storefront paint-your-own-pottery thing, at a place called Paint the Town in University Village. I had a very good time doing it -- hey, doodling and doin' crafty stuff in a social setting where someone else cleans up the mess, what's not to like? -- and today, after my Chinese 203 class final exam was in my rearview mirror, I went to collect the fired result. I'm happy to report that I am Not Displeased with the result. Not ecstatic, mind, 'cause the glaze/paint behaves in ways I did not fully expect or plan for, but within the paradigm of a first try, it's not bad at all:



I will try this again, I think. Especially now that I know that Paint the Town carries garden markers among the stock of bisqueware. Doodling in public, yay.

Comments

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

That's lovely. I'd never have guessed that it was a first try. (I'm no connoisseur of pottery, mind you.)

[frostfox.livejournal.com]

That's really good. I've not done pottery since collage, yea, those many years ago (1981) but I remember how different slips and glazes are from paints. It's hard.

FF

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Well, I've worked with glazes and oxides before, but these are actually neither fish nor fowl. The made-for-bisqueware underglazes are not proper glazes -- you have to dip the final piece in a true glaze before you fire them the second time -- nor are they as thin as what I'm used to in an oxide underglaze. Actually, the stuff that Paint the Town uses is apparently a product called Wonderglaze, which does fire to a gloss finish like a true glaze, but that only works if you paint the whole piece, which I didn't want to do. Anyway, the trick for me was guessing how much, if at all, they would spread or float, and whether a single coat with the tip applicator was enough to get a deep color. Now I have a better idea of how they behave in the firing.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

1) I like it when other people are reasonably well-paid to clean up also.

2) That is quite nice. I have seen other people's attempts at those things, and they were mostly either not at all as nice or had done them lots and lots of times. Or in many cases both.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

It helps that this is something I had thought about in advance, and that I chose a design idea that didn't require too much precision.

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

Your plate is beautiful. I am very impressed. Is it food safe?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Yes, it's supposed to be food safe -- the glazes are all lead-free, which is usually the main concern in low-fire glazes.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Cool!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[athenais.livejournal.com]

It's beautiful! I'm hugely impressed. My own attempts at painting pottery have come out like "My First Kindergarten Project."

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! It probably helps that I thought about the process a lot (over a number of years, actually) before I finally tried it. I have this lovely vase that I bought in Sweden which has a linear design of huckleberry branches and berries running around it that I have long wanted to copy. This is not that, but it's based on the idea of a branch and leaf design on a white ground, which I already knew works. A lot of people seem to be tempted to try painting large blocks of solid color with the paint-your-own glazes, and the paints are not very well suited to that. If you only do one coat of a color it will be transparent, and possibly a bit streaky, and if you do two or three coats to get a solid color there's a risk that you'll either overrun the lines you set up on previous passes, or that the color will be blotchy and uneven. From what I can tell, getting large blocks of clean-edged, solid, even color with these paints is nigh unto impossible, so the first trick to success is picking a design that doesn't depend on it. Given your drawing style, if you did something doodly in black with just the scroll-tip applicators and I bet it would be wonderful.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

That is charming--and looks like fun!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

It's enormously fun. I found it very therapeutic, too.

[auntysocial.livejournal.com]

It looks good. I've always sort of wanted to try it myself. Maybe I will.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

By all means do! It's a pleasant way to spend an afternoon -- it's especially helpful if you go in with a plan of what sort of thing you want to do. Doing a bit of practice doodling in advance doesn't hurt, either.

[carbonel]

That's really impressive. There used to be a paint-your-own pottery place at a local mall, but I think it's gone now. I used to do clay throwing on the wheel, but this kind of decoration is another level entirely.