While I am waiting on the kiln to cool, I figured I post one of the decal results I’d been working on since the beginning of the year. Most of the issues I’d been hindered by are colorants not being strong enough, they were too faint on the pot to really appreciate. So I broke out the cobalt. On this pot, I used the pronto plate lithography process using 90% 3124 Frit, 10% EPK, and mixing it with 40% cobalt (yeah, that’s 140%, but that’s how I roll - always giving it 140 percent). Anyways, normally that would be a unhealthy level of cobalt for a glaze. The first tests at fired to cone 04 (over top a cone 10 glaze) were not so hot, so… I fired some more tests with the bunnies from the previous post which happened to be cone 5 (over top cone 10 glazes). I got a solid melt to the underlying glaze, a nice blue detailed design. The square motif on these are about an 1″. I think I may drop the temp down a little more to help retain the crispness of the image, however it may be a result of bad printing on my part.
The white decals are next. I got a few promising results using zircopax, but they were still pretty translucent for my tastes. So myu next step is silkscreening them to get a heavier coat.
Lastly, on a similar note, I bought a CraftRobo a few weeks ago and that thing is awesome! Basically it’s a printer but instead of printing it cuts. It will set you back about $300, not bad for a vinyl cutter. But I used it to cut out stencils from copy paper. I applied them to leather hard pots and soaked them real good with water. Then brushed various flashing slips in layers. After the pot was leather hard again, I peeled the stencils back. Those pots are in the kiln cooling now. Can’t wait to see what they, look like. The process was inspired by Zygote’s torn newsprint method, who is generous enough to share his processes on his blog. Check ‘em out if you haven’t already!
Cobalt Decals with Toner Decals
Detail
