Decorating With Overglaze

As I mentioned in the last post, I have been experimenting with overglaze. At right is one of my first successful pieces, a raku fired tea bowl with a plum flower motif. I used a tube of outlining formula Porcelaine 150 for the black, and painted the red with a Chinese calligraphy brush. I painted a red area for the logo (or the "chop") and scratched the details away with one of my long-time favorite tools, an X-acto knife.

I posted the other experiments with Porcelaine 150 on my Flickr page.

Porcelaine 150

Porcelaine 150 is on overglaze, similar to enamel but baked on at a considerably lower temperature. My friend Junji suggested that I apply red paint into the recesses of my stamped logo to make it look more like my printed logo, which is inspired by the Asian style of stamped seals, commonly referred to as a chop.

It really works best on white pottery, but it looks good on the yellow pieces I tried it on, as well.

Of course, the real intended use of overglaze is not to be applied into recesses, but painted on as a decoration. I'll be trying my hand some of that here shortly!