2016 Begins/Explorer's Group Tour Part 2

After the tea, the dance program and the company presentation, we were offered the chance to decorate a porcelain bisque blank of our very own.

They brought us 4 colors of "paint" as they called it. There was a browned mustardy yellow, a ruddy flesh color, a blue and black. I don't know how many of you know this, but my mother and I had a ceramic studio in her home for many years. We took a lot of certification classes, including achieving a national certification and taught lots and lots of classes. I assumed the "paints" had to be underglazes (color applied before a clear or mostly clear glaze is applied). Typically there is some time in a kiln after the underglaze application, the item is glazed and then re-fired to get that shiny, durable finish. We got a single coarse brush not designed for this type of application. The handle end of the brush, though, made very nice dots.

About the colors. There was no good information as to what the colors would look like once glazed and fired. I asked about glazing, etc., because they weren't giving us that information either at first. I think part of the issue was definitely the language barrier, but I also believe most of the folks helping us had never applied underglazes themselves.  We made recommendations later that they have a cup or plate with the underglaze colors with glaze applied and fired so everyone could see what the finished color would look like. I remembered that underglazes are tricky things—very often they change color when glazed and fired and the change can be dramatic.

Prior knowledge also allowed me to 1)suggest to one lady that she not use pencil to write her name on the back of the plate as it would likely disappear during firing and 2) suggest to another lady that she not keep repainting areas as they were drying and changing color. The first needed to use the underglaze to sign her name and the second needed to just let the color dry and then it would appear mostly uniform. If you apply the underglazes too heavily the glaze can actually pull away from the color during the glaze fire.

For my first plate, I figured blue mostly stayed blue so even if it changed shade of blue I would still like it once completed.

Once the helpers saw I had finished a plate and was waiting, they brought me another plate. Well, now I had to switch colors. The helpers insisted the ruddy flesh color was "red," I created a design that I felt might go with the plates we brought with us. They are a Corelle pattern with red and black on a white background.

In the case of these colors, there was not a huge amount of color shift, though the blue got darker and the "red" got more orange. Here are my two finished plates.

After the artistic session of underglazing, we had a factory tour. On the tour I was amazed at how they stack stuff that is fragile—both in the kiln and just on pallets.

But I would love to have a color applicator like this device! Load them up, tilt it over, press start, tilt it back and done! It even spins it pretty dry.