Stephen C. Cooper on fri 10 jan 97
My wife has requested a set of dishes--each with a quote from a
different one of her favorite poems.
Is there an easy or a "better" way to do this?
Are there one-of-a-kind transfers I could order from calligraphy done
on a piece of paper?
What's next easiest? etching into a contrasting slip? Underglaze?
For me this is to be recreation, not a full-time employment. I still
work a regular job and that doesn't leave lots of time for art projects
-- but, if after 25 years, all the woman wants is some dishes, well,
hey... ----- ScCoop@aol.com
Nancy Phillips on sat 11 jan 97
Stephen C. Cooper wrote:
>
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> My wife has requested a set of dishes--each with a quote from a
> different one of her favorite poems.
> Is there an easy or a "better" way to do this?
> Are there one-of-a-kind transfers I could order from calligraphy done
> on a piece of paper?
> What's next easiest? etching into a contrasting slip? Underglaze?
> For me this is to be recreation, not a full-time employment. I still
> work a regular job and that doesn't leave lots of time for art projects
> -- but, if after 25 years, all the woman wants is some dishes, well,
> hey... ----- ScCoop@aol.com
Greetings from a calligrapher,
My wife Nancy is the potter and I am a calligrapher who likes to lurk on
this list. We have done several interesting collaborations in which I
have used 'Easy Stroke' underglazes to letter onto bisqued surfaces
coated with white or colored slips. The pieces are bisqued again, and
then a clear glaze is applied for the final firing. (You could actually
do the same thing on greenware if careful, and eliminate one bisque
fire).
I use various sizes of chisle-edged or pointed brushes for lettering
(takes practice). A very easy letter-tool is a plastic squeeze bottle
fitted with a metal funnel-shaped tip. You can find these in craft
departments (like at Wal-Mart), and are sold for fabric
painting/decoration. These don't make elegant calligraphic (thick and
thin)lines but do make very fine monoline strokes which make good
printed capital letters or cursive miniscules. Potters also use rubber
ear-syringe bulbs fitted with bicycle pump needles to make slip lines
and you can letter with these as well.
An excellent set of instructional manuals and videotapes on both pen
and brush calligraphy have been produced by my friend Fran Sloan. You
can Email her at: AHACALLIG@aol.com
Good luck and good lettering,
Bob Phillips
Roswell, NM
Jaine & George on sat 11 jan 97
You might try sgraffito. It won't take that much longer than writing
out the passages, and then a clear or translucent glaze is all you'll
need. Yes, it'll be more labor-intensive than buying probably
expensive custom-made transfers, but you did imply it will be a labor
of love.
Jaine in Cresskill where the snow flurries are over already and the
sky is blue
Stephen C. Cooper wrote:
>
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> My wife has requested a set of dishes--each with a quote from a
> different one of her favorite poems.
> Is there an easy or a "better" way to do this?
> Are there one-of-a-kind transfers I could order from calligraphy done
> on a piece of paper?
> What's next easiest? etching into a contrasting slip? Underglaze?
> For me this is to be recreation, not a full-time employment. I still
> work a regular job and that doesn't leave lots of time for art projects
> -- but, if after 25 years, all the woman wants is some dishes, well,
> hey... ----- ScCoop@aol.com
Nan Dufresne on sun 12 jan 97
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>My wife has requested a set of dishes--each with a quote from a
>different one of her favorite poems.
>Is there an easy or a "better" way to do this?
> Are there one-of-a-kind transfers I could order from calligraphy done
>on a piece of paper?
>What's next easiest? etching into a contrasting slip? Underglaze?
> For me this is to be recreation, not a full-time employment. I still
>work a regular job and that doesn't leave lots of time for art projects
>-- but, if after 25 years, all the woman wants is some dishes, well,
>hey... ----- ScCoop@aol.com
>
>One solution to your calligraphy would be to print the words out in a word
processor font. This can be sized and printed out to the needed dimensions.
Then trace it onto the plate with clay carbon or dressmakers' colored
sheets. I've done this using WordPerfect and CorelDraw motifs. Works well.
I use translucent underglaze or greenware and and Stroke"n" Coat or Concepts
on bisque. Be sure to thin you medium and use a small fine brush.
Nan Dufresne in Porterfield, WI
Lili Krakowski on wed 15 jan 97
Lucky our, I was "off" e-mail for a couple of weeks. First: unless you
observe a different calendar than the rest of us, or really can put in a
lot of time, forget about getting a full set of dishes lettered "in time".
Then: you want writing or printing I think, not the more formal lettering
of what is called calligraphy. (I would urge you, nevertheless, to take
some calligraphy classes as they will discipline both eye and hand.)
The easiest in my experience is to use latex resist on slip (unless the
body is ver dark or very light) and a contrasting slip over the latex.
Latex has the advantage that it comes off and mistakes are easy to
correct. I would urge you also to cut out newspaper the size of the
platesyou are doing, and using a crayon or such the same width as your brush to
write your message on the paper first. Then lay the paper on your
leatherhard plate, and, going as lightly as you can, using a bamboo
skewer or a
6H pencil or the like (a hard, not too sharp point) gently trace the outline
through the paper. Practice first on scrap leatherhard clay so you get
the perssure right. Use these tracings as outline for your latex.
You alsso can follow this method for scraffito--scratching away the slip,
either from within the letters (the letters will be "in" the clay proper)
or around teh letters (the letters will be "in" the slip)
Unfortunately it takes a while to develop fluency --so that the brush
strokes or the scraffito look natural and effortless.
When I was at school we were told the story of the English family who
sometime in the 1920s received a number of huge crates from China. In
them was a set of dishes ordered by their grandfather in the 1880s-- The
point is--great art can't be hurried. Good luck.
Lili Krakowski
lkkrakow@edisto.cofc.edu
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