Having fired a second batch of lighter, brighter decals onto delft tiles and been disappointed with the washed out look of the results, I approached Stew at Digital Ceramic, where the transfer decals were made. He suggested that I send him a spare decal if I had one and he would fire it there in Stoke and send me back the finished product.
Here is the result. What a difference! Dick Turpin here is much, much closer to what I was after. Markedly so.
Question is: Why are the results from the same batch of transfers so different? Something to do with the kiln at Mile End where I got mine fired? Who knows, but now I'm thinking maybe I should let (pay) the guys who make the decals also fire them...
The large white tile is DC's firing, the two grey and washed out ones on the righthand side are mine. Below Mr Turpin is a spare unfired decal to show how they differed once cooked.
3 comments:
Beautiful colour.
I still find the crackle mysterious; did you leave it off the decal for this one?
Thanks so much ElizT.
The crackles are a real crackles in the surface of the Dutch tiles I've been firing the transfer decals onto. The Dick Turpin tile shown here was fired by the company who produce the decals onto one of their own (uncrazed) tiles - hence no cracks. Problem is, it appears it might be the crackle glaze surface of the original tiles that is causing the problem - that there is (perhaps) a bad chemistry between that surface and the transfer. Which puts me at something of an impasse - it appears I can have crackles or the blue I'm after, but not both. :-(
Thank you very much Paul; it's all most interesting.
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