Funny how things happen...
Thought I'd try out stenciling and screen printing onto clay. Purchased a Cricut Maker. First, I tried out a resist process where the cut vinyl is stuck to the clay, paint some colored slip over it and peel the vinyl off leaving that design bare and outlined by the slip. Then tried stencils. Cut the design on the Cricut and transferred it to silk screen fabric. Cool! This is reusable. Then I was asked to screen print a customer's logo onto some products. Their logo had really teeny tiny print and if you've ever weeded vinyl cuts, you know how difficult it is to transfer floaty bits (like the middle of an O, for example). They tend to get stuck onto something and you can't find it! So, you start over, lose it again, start over, lose it again... and there's lots of cursing. Then, when you're cleaning up, low and behold there's that "o", stuck to the back of your hand. Then I recently purchased an Ikonart Custom Stencil system. It's a game changer for the small, detailed stuff. This is a photo emulsion process. Print your design on a transparency, put transparency over top of special photo sensitive emulsion screen, expose it to light for 30 seconds, run it under water, and VOILA, a custom screen. No weeding! It is a little more expensive than the vinyl but the anxiety of weeding those tiny o's is eliminated and worth every penny.
Practice makes perfect. Depending on the underglaze used, they can be a bit too wet right out of the container and can bleed under the screen. So next step; get the consistency of my underglaze right so it doesn't bleed. Discover Mayco's Screen Print Medium. Another game changer. Just sprinkle a tiny bit of this powder onto the underglaze, mix it in and this thickens it up like pudding. Next, figure out that you shouldn't put too much on, a little goes a long way.
My son showed the company he works for an ashtray I had literally thrown together. The first screen I did was of a cool looking pot leaf. I had put it on a slab of clay just to test out this new process of screening, but when it came out so nice, I figured I better fire it in the kiln to see how it would look finished. What am I going to make with this slab of clay with a pot leaf on it? Well, it should be an ashtray, of course. Cut out a circle, put little dents where a joint might sit and voila, an ashtray. Brings me back to my first lessons many years ago, where teachers joke that the first thing you try to make on a pottery wheel always turns out to be an ashtray. When it was done, I asked my son if he'd like to have it and if he didn't like it, to toss it out. I wasn't sure if he was being nice and just accepting it. Like that shampoo commercial from years back, he showed two friends, they showed two friends and so on. He showed his coworkers and company owner. Told them my mom is a potter and made this. He mentioned I was experimenting with a screen-printing process. They placed an order of 10 items and sent me a digital copy of their logo. After lots of experiments and tests, I ended up with about 30 items. The company wanted all of them and place another order. Thank you to them, Green Hedge, for their patience while I tested product design and screen printing. It's quite a big deal for me as it's a hobby I've dabbled with for years on and off. Now I'm retired from a desk job and can spend more time making pots. Here's some pictures below. Really happy with this journey and the pots. Some friends and neighbours have ordered these as well. I'd better get making more! I love making pottery.
Funny how things happen.
Practice makes perfect. Depending on the underglaze used, they can be a bit too wet right out of the container and can bleed under the screen. So next step; get the consistency of my underglaze right so it doesn't bleed. Discover Mayco's Screen Print Medium. Another game changer. Just sprinkle a tiny bit of this powder onto the underglaze, mix it in and this thickens it up like pudding. Next, figure out that you shouldn't put too much on, a little goes a long way.
My son showed the company he works for an ashtray I had literally thrown together. The first screen I did was of a cool looking pot leaf. I had put it on a slab of clay just to test out this new process of screening, but when it came out so nice, I figured I better fire it in the kiln to see how it would look finished. What am I going to make with this slab of clay with a pot leaf on it? Well, it should be an ashtray, of course. Cut out a circle, put little dents where a joint might sit and voila, an ashtray. Brings me back to my first lessons many years ago, where teachers joke that the first thing you try to make on a pottery wheel always turns out to be an ashtray. When it was done, I asked my son if he'd like to have it and if he didn't like it, to toss it out. I wasn't sure if he was being nice and just accepting it. Like that shampoo commercial from years back, he showed two friends, they showed two friends and so on. He showed his coworkers and company owner. Told them my mom is a potter and made this. He mentioned I was experimenting with a screen-printing process. They placed an order of 10 items and sent me a digital copy of their logo. After lots of experiments and tests, I ended up with about 30 items. The company wanted all of them and place another order. Thank you to them, Green Hedge, for their patience while I tested product design and screen printing. It's quite a big deal for me as it's a hobby I've dabbled with for years on and off. Now I'm retired from a desk job and can spend more time making pots. Here's some pictures below. Really happy with this journey and the pots. Some friends and neighbours have ordered these as well. I'd better get making more! I love making pottery.
Funny how things happen.
