TRANSFERS PRINTED ON CLAY

Printing Images on Clay

These pots were a cooperative effort. The pots were thrown by Kathy Penia. The transfers and design were mine.

The small disk to the left above is a test tile I did to see how overlaying more than one transfer on top of another would work. I am pleased with the effect. All of this is a practice for my mixed media world, but I love doing pottery. Clay is so tactile, it totally involves all ones senses in the act of making art.

The young woman on the pot above is my Mother when she was in college. The insects are a nod to her love of biology and science. With aging and the effects of a stroke, I lose bits of the Mother I knew. These pots are in honor of her and the amazing person she was. It is my way of dealing with loss and sadness. At 98 and a half, she is still a formidable person in her own way. There are many things that motivate an artist to do art. It is self expression when we make art. We create often because of our emotions: Such as love, happiness, compassion, fright and horror, and sadness.

The glaze is an antique green, that give speckles of brown. It is a cone 6 and was sprayed on. We found if we sprayed the glaze the image would not run. If we applied it with a brush, the ink in the transfers ran and blurred.

PRINTING ON CLAY

PRINTING ON CLAY

There are many methods one can use to print on clay, but this is one our class found that has been successful for us.

We experimented with various ink recipes and different ways of putting the " ink" on clay. Our teacher Kathy made many test tiles and made notations on each. It was truly a trial and error process. That is what I love about art, the process of experimentation. In the first to photo's Kathy is selecting a xerox image for her pottery. All the images we use are either royalty free or our own drawings and photo's.

Supplies you will need:

1) xerox image

2) "clay ink"

3) brayer

4) 2 plastic bowls of water

5)newspaper

6)rubber gloves

7)small sponges

1)Choose your image, cutting off excess paper, but leaving a good half inch.

2) Apply a teaspoon or more of gum of arabic solution to the glass.

3) Put your image on top of the wet area image facing upwards.

4) Rub the excess gum solution over top of image.

5) Take sponge and wipe around image removing excess gum solution

5) Apply ink to brayer and roll on to image. It is best to roll in one direction and then repeat rolling in the opposite direction.

6) Using a small sponge with water softly dab the image until ink is removed. It may take several times.

7) Repeat three times, apply ink and removing

8) After the last application carefully put image on clay that has been allowed to dry slightly, not quite leather hard. The clay must be moist enough to absorb the ink.

9) Now burnish lightly with a spoon and allow to dry

10) burnish again lightly and remove.

The ink will be very smudgy until the clay is fired, so be careful touching and handling during this phase.

Clean the water often. One bowl should have a teaspoon of gum solution and clean sponges. The other bowl will be for the inking and re-inking process. This is a very messy process so rubber gloves keep your hands clean while you work with the ink.

One of the things that one must be careful about is rolling on the ink. It is easy with small images for them to just roll on to the roller and then it is tricky to get them off in one piece.

Dabbing the image softly many times removes the ink, until you are ready to re-ink and then finally apply it your clay piece.

In this image Kathy is placing her picture on her pottery piece being careful to leave

space for other images.

In the photo to the left Kathy is burnish the back of the photo with a metal spoon.

A plastic spoon will work also.

Judy is one of my classmates who is trying the process for the first time with great success.

I will post the exact "clay ink" formula for you in the next post. You will need gum solution, linseed oil and a ceramic powder. The ink needs to be made 48 hours ahead of time. After the initial mixing of the ingredients, the ink must be repeatedly shaken for 20 minutes. Putting small marbles or pebbles inside the jar helps to mix the ink better. Once made the ink must be used and not saved more that a couple of days or it will crystalize.

Tomorrow Printing on Clay!!!

PRINTING ON CLAY

Art class tomorrow is printing on clay! Our teacher Kathy, and I worked to come up with a recipe and techniques that are successful in putting photo images on clay. Here are two tiles and a pot I created with photo images transferred to a clay surface. The first is a nature study of insects. The second is an early geisha photo taken from my Japanese post card collection. The pot to the left is an image of my Mother when she was in college. She is now 98 and a half. She was a science teacher and biology major. She taught me a love of science and nature. One of my earliest memories is of the science department when Mother was studying for her masters degree. I was 5 and my brother was 9. We went with her to school and while she was in class we were allowed to visit the university campus. I remember the glass jars with specimens and mounted insects. I remember the old worn dark wood floors. The memories still influence my art today. I wonder what memories you have from your childhood and how they influence your art or appreciation of the arts today.