Glazed and Decaled Wall Tile Boxes
Wall boxes pre-decoration – made using stiff slab construction
The week before the Colorado Potters Guild Spring Show, the idea to make some wall box tiles came into my conciousness and couldn’t be ignored. I made a lot of these while I was in school, but hadn’t really thought about them for awhile. I really want to add more depth and layers to my work and I confess am struggling with that just a bit. I think there is potential with these wall boxes that act more like canvases in 2-D work.
Drawing directly on wall box with dull pencil in preparation for mishima
I need to allow more thought for how to finish these in the future. I was pretty rushed before the show and went with familiar easy images I already have in my arsenal.
Colored slip was applied to drawn areas and cleaned up with rib
Mishima adds almost a sub layer since the colored slip becomes part of the actual “canvas” if you will. I have a few colored slips pre-made that I made using scrap clay and mason stains.
Colored slip was stenciled onto the wall box
Using paper stencils, I applied more colored slip on top of the clay box while it was leather hard. This slip is a pale yellow and is the only one I have where I’ve used oxides instead of mason stains – I think I used rutile and copper carb for this one.
Wall box glazed and decaled
After bisque firing the wall box, I brushed on glazes and fired to cone 6. This tile is 6″ square x 1.5″ deep and I wasn’t sure if warping would be an issue or not. There was some slight bowing, but not terribly. After the glaze fire, I added laser toner decals to the paper stenciled flowers and added an image of a vintage bird and fired again to cone 04. The soft yellow stenciled flowers are not very visible in this photo – that’s what I get for rushing.
Meanwhile, I haven’t had much time to get into the studio the past week, besides firing my student’s work. I will get in a few hours tomorrow and Wednesday – but today am chaperoning a field trip to the Platte River. It’s a nature/ecology based field trip put on by SPREE which is a group that educates the public – specifically school children all about the Platte River, which is a major fresh water source for Denver and other parts of Colorado, so that it stays protected. In the past, the Platte River was pretty polluted and unappreciated.
With that, have a good week,
~Cynthia
