Decals, Screen-prints and Frustration

I started a while back learning the process of decals and found Justin Rothshank’s website which provided a huge amount of information. Useful information which went from the start of the image process to the final product. Having found his website at the beginning of my decal journey to incorporating my own photography into my pottery I thought this was the norm for finding information on new processes.

That was a mistake on my part and a rather arrogant mindset that I should be able to find whatever information I needed without doing the work and testing to find if it fit my needs.

Starting with both a DVD and a book from well-known potters who create decals from ceramic underglazes I had a pretty good grasp of the process AFTER the screen print was created. This is
where my problems rose up. Neither the book nor the DVD explained in any detail how to prepare the image. No troubleshooting for my particular needs.

Now mind you, I’m still in the mindset at this point that the information should be easy to find if you just look and now that I’ve actually paid money for something to help me learn then they should be able to answer my questions. Frustration set in when messages on Facebook and emails went  unanswered. It didn’t matter that I didn’t even know the correct question to ask. I needed help and wanted it now. I was pretty cranky.

I started scouring all the screenprinting sites and YouTube video’s I could find and came across one small tutorial from wegraphics.net showing how to turn a photo into a screen printed graphic. That started my journey into what I needed to do to prepare one of my photographs for screen-printing.

I’m still just at the beginning of my journey but now have a clear goal in sight so it allowed me to
take a look at my expectations and see I was not really fair and the expectation of responding just because I purchased a book or DVD is not reasonable. Going to a workshop and asking those questions is reasonable and if either of the two potters has a workshop near my home I will guarantee I’ll do my best to get there!

In the next couple of weeks I’ll put some pictures together to share a little more detail in hopes that I
can pay it forward to make up for my greediness for knowledge and to help alleviate someone else going through the same frustrations I have experienced so far.

Am I Crazy?

In my last post on 7/13 I just spoke about how little time I had to post on my blog with part being due to our new puppy and the amount of time it takes to grow up. So what do I do? We add this to our pack:

 

 

So I will just have to get better at time management and take lots of advantage of naptimes!

I’m finished with the Fused Glass Pendants for now. Moving back to my clay which I’ve missed for the last year. Feeling pretty good about the recovery of a number of decals which had to be re-done after the WD Passport crash. I’m working on getting pictures processed and online on the Etsy store but here are just a few that I’m happy with.

 

 

It’s Been A While

Quite a bit has gone on in my life since Nov 2013. A new puppy was born Nov 2013 and came home to use 8 weeks later. New puppies take lots of time. 

From this:

To this:

To this:

Would not have traded this time for all the world.

The next year was spent mainly trying to recover from a major loss when I dropped my WD Passport. I know better than to not back things up. I work in technology and just kept putting off fixing the issue with the other Passport not backing up. Then I dropped it. Still haven’t recovered but got enough to focus on a few trophy donations, made some new decals.

Also found myself working and learning about fused glass. Ran a few tests to see if my decals would work on glass. They did. From there a lot of reading, a class at a local glass place and lots of supplies. These complement my pottery quite well so I’ll be continuing to work on them.

Learning To Use Decals

I am not an artist. I do not draw or paint on clay. Nor am I a sculptor. I do not etch or carve on clay. I’ve tried. I intensely dislike what I see from my efforts. You can call it hate. I love what I see in others work when they use any of these techniques with their pottery.

So what is someone like me, who loves the imagery, to do. I love photography and while I am still in beginner mode it does not cause me the frustration trying to draw, paint, carve or sculpt causes. I actually feel as if I’m improving and I like what I see. That is most important. I like it.

I came across some conversations discussing decal work. I initially tried sending off for high-fire color decals and while they worked very nicely it was not the actual look I was hoping to see and it was a bit costly for my particular budget. Fast forward to this year. I keep seeing a name and work I like. Justin Rothshank's

He does wonderful work and has freely shared a huge amount of information about decals with the world of potters. Using the information from his blog I gathered enough tools to start my own series of tests using my own photography.

I am liking what I see so far. I have much testing to do and will share my steps as I go along from what glazes work well at what temperatures to taking a photograph step-by-step from photo to decal.

With the pictures below I’ve noted the clay, glaze, firing temp, speed of firing and what I’ve found with the decal or glaze.

All clay and glaze below is Laguna B-Mix C5 with grog. Glaze is Coyote Clay Shino glaze with Espresso Bean on the rim. Decals were printed on Fired-On Decal transfer paper.

The following picture shows tumblers bisque fired to cone 05, glaze firing done in a Skutt electric kiln to Cone 5 at a fast speed. Decal firing was to cone 04. I was surprised the glaze turned matte since my early tests to these temps did not turn matte and held their Shino colors. I realized this application of glaze was quite a bit thicker since I had to brush this on. As you can see it is rather yellowish and the Espresso Bean rim lost much of it's darkness.

I then took a group of them and decided to fast fire them back to Cone 5 and see if I gained my glaze As you can see by the comparison the one on the left looks like a glaze fired to the right temperature again. I assume the lumps and bumps under the glaze is the grog coming to the surface due to the firings.

 I then decided to try just firing the rest of them back to Cone 1 to see what would happen and they look as if they were fired back to Cone 5. I do lose some of the darkness from the decal but this glaze blends well with the sepia colored decal so I'll keep it. I will need to make sure I have some good strong lines in my decals when using this glaze. I lose the fine details firing higher.

Periods of Time

It’s interesting how certain things in life seem to fall into categories or ‘periods of time’ for me. I have a tendency to like such a wide variety of activities when I have to do the same thing over and over it falls into a rut and becomes boring or stressful.

In the years that have passed since taking pottery, and my photography, back up I’ve noticed I prefer to use them as a stress reliever so I do not stay within what I should be throwing or need to be throwing and I just throw what I feel like at the time.

Last year I made the decision to go back to work outside of my pottery fulltime so I would not have to make financial decisions. This would allow me to continue to throw whatever I wanted and not what someone else might want to purchase. It was a very freeing decision for me personally.

So what happened? I committed to several donations and found myself having to throw a number of items and it did not matter if I wanted to throw something else. I only had spare time to throw what I committed to providing.

Huh? Wasn’t that exactly what I did not want to do? Yes but what I learned with the first donation was the sense of completion I have not experienced previously. The improvement in my actual throwing skills was measurable as I came to the end of throwing all those tumblers. Very simple form but it really forced me to pay attention to being consistent and keeping my pulls up consistent.

It was a reminder to “never say never” when it comes to a journey. Just enjoy and learn from where you go.

Days of Grace mugs continued

My first set of Days of Grace mugs are out of the kiln and fired. I'm very happy with the first firing. I have a few updates to make to the templates and I know the smallest font I can use now with these glazes. I have them up on my ETSY store or on my website for more pictures.

The Days of Grace (DoG) series came from a desire to encourage women through scriptures and affirmations. There is nothing I like better than to start my day in a little peace and quiet with my hands wrapped around my cup of coffee before the day goes manic. I need a reminder once in a while to slow down and remember to take care of myself also. I hope whichever mug you choose will do the same for you.

Days of Grace mugs

I'm having so much fun with a new technique for a series of mugs aimed at encouraging women with scriptures and affirmations. While some might speak to men I think of women and our unique challenges we face as I make each mug. I can't wait to get the first kiln load fired and glazed within the next week. I'm so anxious I'm only firing the kiln about 2/3 filled. Here is an example of a group of mugs still drying.

New year....new start

Seriously. Has it really been over a year since I've updated my blog? As much as I talk? There is busy and then there is busy. I'll have to remedy this.

I'm excited with the direction my clay work is going. I've been working on tumblers that hold at least 14-16 oz. I love them over the plain glass to drink my cold drinks from so I've been working to improve my skills. I'm also working on a new set of mugs using a mix of the tumbler techniques and throwing. I love being able to make a statement with them so I can't wait to get a load of them finished and fired so I can show them off. Here are a couple of my newer pieces of work. Enjoying life!

Dogstock Pottery

I'm breathing a sigh of relief. After hours of working to get enough thrown to fill the kiln and working around my other work commitments I worry it won't be a good firing. I was relieved to see some nice items when I peeked at about 760 and even more relieved when I pulled those last shelves up to see almost all pieces were decent. Several turned out very nice and to my expectation.

Dogstock pottery

It's been a super busy springtime. Not sure if I should really call it springtime since the weather has been more like winter. I'm enjoying every minute of below normal temps though. I'd never miss the 100+ temps if they went away. I can't wait to see how some of this fires out in the glaze firing.

One small oops in the last batch of handles. So do you market it as a second or as a left-handed mug ;)

Mugs

A new style of mugs from what I normally make. I liked throwing them but I'm not sure about the handles yet. The curl at the bottom is what I'm not sure of on the handle. I'll see what it looks like when I glaze it.

More Decals

My favorite. I just wanted to share. I see all kinds of places I can use this type of decal in my claywork.

I used Ceramic Decal Printing. I'll be using them again.

When The Green Glob-lins Strike

I was so looking forward to a new batch of green glazed pottery. I love this glaze but you really have to be careful with not too hot and not too thick. Unfortunately I did both. I can't bring myself to hammer them since I really like the rest of the pot, just not the foot.

Maybe I need to start a Penguin Pot series. These look just like the roll of fat at the bottoms of a penguin when they are holding an egg.

I am finally getting to focus on working on my pottery again after too much time on the tech side of things. I have my website pretty much complete, my photography site complete and my Etsy store up to date now.

So here are a few of my latest from the kiln.

Check back to see what is new or visit my website for more about me.

Updated website & a new blog

I have recently finished updating my New Beginnings Pottery Website and thought I would use this blog to keep everyone updated with some of my new pottery here. Below are thumbnails of what I have on the Etsy store but I'll have just a few and my tests in the future.