View Larger Image After brushing on a design with an oxide wash, Lais trails porcelain-slip details onto a stoneware dinner plate. He says, “I spent untold hours practicing to perfect my brushwork.”

October 31, 2007

Glazing and Brushstrokes

by Lynn Lais | Read Comments (1)

In today's Ceramic Arts Daily, Lynn Lais shares with you his glazing techniques for decorating his pieces.

For me, glazing has three rules: application, application and application! The glaze viscosity is critical for most of the work I do. The largest portion is dipped into the glaze. Dipping requires counting the seconds submerged, which allows me to manipulate the color through the thickness of the glaze coating. When I spray glazes, I fly by the seat of my pants and occasionally get it wrong, but not often enough for me to change.

Occasionally “getting it wrong” has resulted in new approaches or has given birth to new ideas. I use few glazes. For years I worked with only two, now I am up to six. Six glazes, three slips and three washes gives me enough to think about at this time.

DECORATING TECHNIQUES
When I decorate I use two techniques. After working for others for three years, I started making pots for myself in 1981. I began by working with oxide washes over raw glaze. I simply mixed straight oxides with water, added a bit of glycerin to help suspend the oxides and brushed it over the glaze. With this technique, there are no second chances. Once the brush touched the pot, I needed to move immediately and finish the stroke. The washes are simple: straight iron oxide, a two-to-one rutile to iron mixture, and a one-to-one mixture of cobalt oxide and cobalt carbonate.

A few years later I began brushing cobalt slip and highlighting the strokes by trailing porcelain slip. This is looser for me, and allows me to be more spontaneous. The cobalt mixture is 100 grams of Kentucky OM 4 ball clay and 10 grams of cobalt oxide. The porcelain is an old clay body we mixed in college. For some of my work I have added 3% copper carbonate to the porcelain slip. When I use the matt glaze, I can get a pinkish-rose-colored highlight in the slip trailing. I have not given up one technique for the other, but have learned to balance both the washes and slip to give my gallery and work more interest.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
See a term you weren’t quite sure of? Then visit the Ceramic Arts Daily Glossary. Lynn Lais’ work is available at the Spruce Forest Artisan Village and the Penn Alps Craft Shop in Grantsville, Maryland, and at the Village Pottery in Intercourse, Pennsylvania.