Kim Schoenberger - JKLM

JKLM - Techniques...

J - Sgrafitto - with burnished red porcelain slip
K - Stamping - with foam and underglaze
L - Stamping - with foam and porcleain slip
M - Underglaze - brushed on

Kim Schoenberger - M

M - Underglaze - brushed on

Firstly, I transfered an imprint of the letter M onto the clay tile and using a very fine brush and a steady hand I've applied three coats of black underglaze. Three coats are necessary to achieve an even colour, if the application is not even a washed out look can result after the final firing.

Finished with a solid colour border, ofcourse.....as it was easier to do three coats solid rather than attempting a fine line! Sanded and ready for bisque.

Thought I'd share an extra image with you.... These are my clay tiles I'm using for each letter. I made (slab rolled) all 26 at once to keep them the same size, thickness etc...and have been stored in plastic since July, with an occassional mist spray to keep them leatherhard. They will eventually dry out and when they do I'll have to bisque fire them and apply my letter to bisqueware.

Kim Schoenberger - K L

I seem to be creating pairs of letters with two similar techniques.

K - Stamping - with foam and underglaze

Wanting to carve into foam I cut a square with a hacksaw blade. I first tried the dremel to shape a K, not to successful I might add! It just tore and grabbed at the foam. My second and successful attempt I used a hot soldering iron to melt away the foam.

After a few test runs and getting the correct consistency with the underglaze, I felt confident enough to stamp the K. The foam is pressed very lightly into the container of underglaze, a gentle hand is needed in both soaking up the colour to stamp and when stamping, so it doesn't go into the negative space and leave behind a blotchy letter.

Phew! All good, I had to hold my breath while doing this one!

L - Stamping - with foam and porcleain slip

Once again the letter is burnt out in the foam using a hot soldering iron (...carefully and not inhaling the toxic fumes!)* and is cut to make a square.

Reverse to the K tile, a thick and smooth porcelain slip is brushed onto the clay tile first. The foam sponge is gently pressed onto the tile to soak up the excess slip creating a nice texture surrounding and the letter is left smooth and slightly three dimensional. Extremely hard to see in this photo, a close look you can see the shiny bit being smooth.

Almost finished K & L, I intend to sharpen the lines on K with black underglaze in a fine nib bottle and outline the L (now bone dry is almost impossible to see in the photo).

P.S....CAN ANYONE PICK THE MISTAKE IN THIS POST?

*Hot soldering iron and foam is not really an ideal technique and I wouldn't use it again or recommend anyone to use it. As this is an exercise in experiementation was the only reason for attempting. I found it to be very challenging not to over melt the foam and toxic.

JGR September Letters

Well, I've had these finished for a while, finally had a few minutes to post. They are computer generated letters with portrait bits included since my usual subject for sketching is portraits.

Une lettre par semaine / september

Bonjour,
Hello,

Voici la suite de l'alphabet... Encore l'écriture "Gestuelle Cursive", encore le carré tracé...
Here is the continuation of the alphabet ... Even writing "Gestures Cursive," yet the square layout ...

Et voici les "feuillets" complets...
And here are the "layers" complete ...

Je vous souhaite une bonne journée.
I wish you a good day.
Callie

Rusty letters for September

Phew! Sometimes one just needs a bit of a reminder about one's letters. Anyway this month I had to do all four in one creative sitting - so not quite a letter a week but still on track with a little catch up.

So here are my four for September - I am still engraving Chiller font letters into rusted iron sheeting.

What I have also managed to do is to source and buy five rusted and beaten timber splitting wedges that will become the base for my letters in flight final piece for this second alphabet. As you can see from the original diagram I have changed it a bit in that I am not going to use a single platform but rather the collective wedges.

Kim Schoenberger - J

J - Sgrafitto

A coloured slip is applied to the clay and carved, scratched or incised with a tool to reveal a different colour underneath.

Really Rich Red slip is being applied to the tile.

Before transfering my letter J and carving into the slip I decided to burnished the tile. Burnishing gives a mirror finish to the surface, it can be traced back to ancient civilisations and was used in unglazed low temperature firings as means of partially sealing the pot, but I'm using it for pure aesthetics and experimentation to see how it responds in a high temp firing compared to that of lower temp firing.

Burnishing stones on the left and carving into the tile.

The slip always looks mottley at this stage but it will burn clean in the firing.

Burnished tile and carved...

Photographed on an angle to show the mirror finish resulting from burnishing and polishing off with a soft plastic freezer bag for extra gloss!

Lettre de septembre - letters of September

Bonjour,
hello,

Please kindly accept my apologies for my delay: it was back in class and ... great work again ..

Voici la suite de l'alphabet... Toujours l'écriture "Gestuelle Cursive", toujours le carré tracé...
Here's the rest of the alphabet ... Always write "Gestural Cursive" always the square route ...

... Et toujours l'alphabet en complément du carré sur la page...
... And always the alphabet in addition to the square on the page ...

Bonne journée
Have a good day

Sue's 1st September letter

My second letter "i" for Sept. Yeeeaah! I am on time at last! Warm regards, Sue

Valerie's Alphabet

The ancient Q - not the letter 2