Firing Temperatures Matter for Laser Toner Decals
White earthenware butterfly tile before adding decals
Early this week, I fired a successful cone 04 decal kiln on cone 6 glazed work – the kin included the star initial pendants that I made for my students. As an experiment, I decided to add some decals to a low fire white earthenware tile I had made as an example for one of my student’s projects and intended to fire it in the same kiln load since I had a little extra space.
Butterfly tile before firing decals
I had previously consulted Linda Arbuckle’s website – she provides a handout in pdf form that discusses firing laser toner decals at different temperatures dependent on the temperature of the glaze surface to which the decal will be adhered. If you’re a clay person, you know that there’s a huge temperature difference between cone 06 and cone 6 – roughly 400° F. I don’t know about you, but I decided to use this piece as a test – does firing temperature of decals really matter or is the rule really more of a friendly suggestion? I know I’ve broken more than my fair share of clay rules with barely any consequences – sometimes, happy accidents are the result.
Post decal firing to cone 04 decals are barely visible
Guess what friends? The photo above post decal firing shows that the recommended firing temps based on glaze temp is a hard and fast rule – though I’m sure it could be exploited somewhat for artistic means. The decals are faded and in the case of the one applied to the chartreuse yellow butterfly – barely visible at all. Seeing is believing. So, what does Linda recommend as a firing temp for decals adhered to cone 06 glazed work? Answer: cone 010-06. If I used a lot of low fire clay, I would probably start experimenting with decal firing around cone 010-08 (1657-1728°F) because it seems like the decal firing should be lower than the glaze firing temperature. Keep in mind that I used commercial Duncan under glazes and clear cone 06 overglaze for this tile experiment – so results might vary depending on what glaze materials are used and firing temp. For my cone 6 glazed work onto which I’ve fired decals successfully, I use bucket glaze recipes vs. commercial glazes.
Meanwhile, a select few (about 1/4 – myself included) of the members of the Colorado Potters Guild have decided to staff a booth to sell handmade pottery almost every month of the summer at the Old South Pearl Street’s Farmer’s Market this summer beginning June 7th. I’ve elected to participate on June 7th, July 12th and August 2nd. After the first week, where almost all interested members will have work represented, the subsequent weeks will only feature 2-3 members at a time for space purposes. On July 12th, I’ll be sharing a booth with Sarah Christensen and on August 2nd a ? person. I’m thinking of asking a non guild member of the Denver clay community to join me 
It will be a good exercise to see if it is worth the effort on Sunday mornings. The Colorado Potters Guild is located on Old South Pearl Street and since we are a member of the Old South Pearl Street Business Association, we are receiving our booth space gratis. Our booth will not really be associated with the Potters Guild per se – each participating member is individually responsible for taxes and proper licensing. We have also christened ourselves…drumroll please…Pearl Street Potters. I know very original, but we can’t use the Colorado Potters Guild name for legal reasons.
So, what am I going to sell at the market? Jewelry for one – but also thinking of pottery related items that will compliment the types of things available for sale at a farmer’s market. Coffee/Tea mugs, soap dishes, bowls, butter keeps, small vases – ideas anyone?
Have a good long Memorial Day weekend,
Cynthia
Stoneware Wall Box Tile Trio
5 Ravens Wall Box Tiles, printed stoneware clay, mishima, brushed glazes and laser toner decals
This trio was a ton of fun to make and decorate. In fact I enjoyed making these so much that I had intended to make more right away. Now that the show pressure is off and the making cycle interrupted, it’s been harder to get back in the studio groove. It doesn’t help that the month of May is a terribly busy one with my daughter’s school activities and my extra volunteer/chaperone/sub duties related to school. But, it’s almost over…the school year officially ends in a mere 11 days when my (weep, weep) 5th grader graduates to middle school. Or as Denver Public Schools puts it – “continues” – sounds more feel good P.C., don’t you think?
Three 2.5" square by 1" deep wall boxes
After constructing the wall boxes, I played around with placement – shuffling them around until I liked how the textures lined up. BTW, this set up was not my final choice.
Side view
To keep the boxes from warping after I constructed them, I weighted them between 2 pieces of drywall board and periodically checked on them until they were bone dry. These were constructed with 45° degree beveled joints which I then scored and slipped with paper clay for strength before joining.
Added a small notched slab for easy hanging
Sarah, a ceramicist up in South Dakota, asked how these hang the other day and I just happen to have a photo of my system in the archives. When I’ve made these in the past, I’ve tried different techniques from just using the upper edge, to punched holes for wire to these little notched additions. The little slabs were left over after I constructed the boxes and just seemed like a good idea at the time. I centered the notch with a measured center point on the top of each tile. These can also sit on a shelf instead of being hung on a wall (see the first photo).
Meanwhile, I did a little pendant glaze firing last night in my mini Aim test kiln. Tomorrow is my last teaching day for my after school clay class and I decided to give the kids a little going away present – star shaped pendants with their initials decaled on the front. The kiln is still too hot to touch this morning – but I did prop the lid open to speed cooling. After I drop my daughter off at the school bus stop and take the hounds for a run, I’m going to spend the am looking for a cool font and will print the initial decals.
Have a great week,
Cynthia
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
No Time to Photograph Last Decal Firing
Pots waiting patiently for their turn for decal attention
Happy Monday morning everyone! After a making/glazing/decal marathon of the past several weeks, I can now breathe a huge contented sigh enjoyed by stress free people all over the world. Not to worry, I’m sure I’ll repeat my manic potter behavior for the show next fall. Try as I might, I can’t seem to break the cycle of cramming for a show at the last minute. The Colorado Potters Guild Spring Show opened Thursday evening and on Wednesday afternoon, I was still applying decals to my work. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek is all my brain was yelling all day long.
Applying decals to tiny tiny covered box
After my small decal firings, this was by far the most ambitious one yet. I didn’t quite fill my Skutt 1027, but almost did. After taking a deep breath, I buckled down – stopped answering emails, phone calls etc. in preparation for assembly line style decal printing and application.
Decaled work ready to be fired
For some of my work, I had already decided on a design – but for at least half, I sort of made it up as I went along. I looked at the pot trying to decide how to “dress” it, if you will. While decals are without a doubt less labor intensive than hand painting – which was one of my hopes for the process – it is not without a time commitment. It took quite a long time to format the decals on a letter sized sheet of decal paper in order to get the most decals out of one sheet. I used a variety of sources for decals, including royalty free clip art, tweaked digital photographs (my own and royalty free ones – read the fine print though for release info, digital scans of actual leaves and sketches of my art work (thanks Wacom tablet).
First 2 shelves of decal firing look good
By 8pm, I was ready to fire the kiln and instead of doing a slow fire because quite frankly I didn’t have the luxury of time, I programmed a fast fire to cone 04, gave a nod to the kiln goddess, crossed my fingers and hoped that I’d have some work to bring to the Guild’s sale. I was up till almost 1am making sure that the kiln would shut off – I had no idea how long a fast cone 04 firing would take (fyi – about 5 hours).
Next shelf looks good too
By 6am Thursday morning, the kiln was still too hot to touch – but being the gambler that I am, I pulled all the peeps, and cracked the lid ever so slightly. By 8am, the kiln had dropped another 300 degrees – so I propped the lid open wider – and by 10 am I was able to unload. Mind you, I think the kiln goddess was listening to my pleas and I got lucky. In my opinion, pots are best when they’re still warm to the touch, much like melt in your mouth chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven.
Blue butterfly box
I can’t tell you how darn happy I was as I unloaded the kiln! Squeals of joy, jumping up and down – woohoos escaping my lips. My joy was short lived, however when I realized that I only had an hour+ to inventory, price & shower before I had to deliver the work to the show venue at noon on Thursday. I have a few candid shots of my work sitting on my work table and that’s it.
Work waiting to be priced
Luckily, I volunteered to be on the photograph team for the Spring Show – so I did pull out 6 of my better pieces to be photographed. I won’t get those back for several weeks though because another member was taking the photographs and needs to upload and edit all of them. I tried taking some over his shoulder with my camera, but I forgot my tripod at home, so they didn’t turn out so well. I’ll share later in the week.
So, how did our show turn out? I didn’t hear how the group as a whole did, but I personally did very well. I brought 80 pieces and sold 60 – all of my covered boxes sold, along with some new wall tiles, all my mugs, butter dishes, and almost every single one of my new decal pieces. I even sold most of my older work that I had priced attractively and wanted to get rid of because I’m tired of looking at it. I have 6 sets of buttons, some small oblong trays, a couple of misc. pieces, and 3 weed pots left over.
In celebration, I hung out with my family this weekend and didn’t do a whole lot of anything besides going to my daughter’s soccer games, laundry and working in the yard a bit. Today, I head back to the studio – I’m pretty jazzed about my new wall tile boxes.
Have a good week,
~Cynthia
