Custom and Commercial Ceramic Decals
J.T. McMaster Ceramic Decal Specialists Website
Several months ago, when I first started posting about my desire to add decals to my work, I was contacted by Lauren Skoll, director of J.T. McMaster – a commercial and custom decal provider out of South Africa. She mentioned that she would be in the Denver area around the same time that the Colorado Potters Guild Spring Show was taking place and I told her I’d love to meet her and see her company’s decals in person.
You know me though (or maybe you don’t) – but I am a glutton for learning…err punishment sometimes. I want to understand the process myself and normally will set out to learn how to do something even though it might be easier and more cost effective to farm some tasks out. Even so, when the Potters Guild event approached, I decided to meet Lauren with an open mind.
Decal samples – hearts, geckos and South African cloth
Lauren came to the sale with a lot of sample decals and left many behind for the guild members to use. I took the decals in the photo above home with the idea that I will play around with these a bit – push the medium to figure out limitations and potential. Unlike the laser toner decals, these are screen printed with ceramic over-glaze colors and fire at a much lower temperature – there are firing instructions on the company’s website. Whereas laser toner decals fire to a sepia tone and the firing temperature depends more on the glaze temperature to which the decal is adhered, these full color decals fire to roughly cone 016.
The other thing that I like about using these is that artists can upload original artwork and specify colors for McMasters to make custom decals – so there’s a lot of potential. Once the proofs are finished, it would be easy to reorder. This would be infinitely easier than learning to screen print oneself and doing all the trial & error proofs before getting good results. I’ve taken a close look at the decals and they are very crisp and clear and am assuming that they would remain so after firing. I suppose one hesitation for me is that I don’t want my work to look commercial – but after checking out the company’s website, there are individual artists who are using these decals very effectively.
I also asked Lauren about prices and sizes, however because each job is custom, cost varies. She did tell me that the currency exchange is very favorable towards the dollar right now and shipping is nominal. The company tries to get as many decals as possible on an A4 size sheet of paper which is slightly narrower and longer than a letter sized sheet of paper (8.5″ x 11″).
Here in the US, Easy Ceramic Decals also makes custom decals – as well as a few other businesses. Just google ceramic decals and voilà! I’ve never used color decals before, so who knows where this venture could lead?
Meanwhile, I’ll play with these and I still have the screen printing supplies to try making my own color decals this summer.
Happy Wednesday,
~Cynthia
P.S. We’re in the market for a pocket sized digital camera for our trip overseas because my camera is way too clunky and heavy. I am seriously considering the Sony Cybershot, the Nikon Coolpix or the Canon Elph. Any thoughts? I had a bit of sticker shock, but in a good way after looking at some in the store. More MP and better digital zoom for a fraction of the cost compared to my 5 year old Olympus. Amazing.
