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| Some progress is made... |
Whilst continuing to investigate transfer decals as one option for creating my delft ceramic tiles, I have also been looking into using on-glaze colours and cobalt oxide powder in solution. My heart wasn't really in it, but I thought to try it and eliminate it as a possibility.
Here are all the tiles I trialled before firing. The pale blue ones were created using a premixed cobalt blue on-glaze solution, the black ones using cobalt oxide powder in a medium of water and gum arabic for adhesion. I'd hoped that the on-glaze would darken, and that the oxide would fire a lovely bright blue. I wasn't holding out much hope for the on-glaze, which were pinned entirely on the oxide.
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| Unfired |
The words on the tiles indicate the three different models of crackle-glaze dutch Delft tiles: - 'Authentic', 'Antique' & 'Ivory'.
Artist, friend and all-round good egg Rob Ryan offered me the use of his kiln in Bethnal Green to fire the tiles to around 800º C.
And here are the results!
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| After Firing |
Quite a surprise. The oxide powder images had remained a dark almost black and had barely fused with the crackle. A disaster. A shame too as I'd found it easier to draw with than the on-glaze.
And the on-glaze images, which I had thought so little of, turned out to be the ones that worked. The colour had darkened nicely and fused perfectly and permanantly into the tile glaze. Result. Quite a difficuly medium to use, but one I could get much better at. The addition of gum arabic to the on-glaze might make it adhere better and next time I shall wait a day before applying the 'wash'...
This is my favourite, the 'authentic' tile. With all these the painting is quite crude but its fired to a good colour with a fantastic and pronounced crackle-glaze surface. I've aged this one further a touch by nipping a few chips off the edges and rubbing with ash.
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| On-glaze Authentic |
The 'ivory' tile was my second favourite of the three. A good dark rich blue but not enough crazing in the glaze for my needs...
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| On-glaze Ivory |
Finally the 'antique' tile, my least favourite. The colour for me is too bright and the crackles in the tile affected the way the wash went on...
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| On-glaze Antique |
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