It's easy to
paint your own pottery. Come in to our ceramic arts studio and choose an item
to paint from our large selection of bisque. Bisque is pottery that has already
been cleaned and fired once and is ready to be painted.
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Decide what
to paint on your pottery piece. If you like, you may consult our library of
design books and pick from an array of stencils, stamps, stickers, and other
painting aids.If this seems like too much trouble, you can go straight to
painting. |
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Choose paints
and tools. You can draw your design on the bisque in pencil if you like. The
pencil marks burn off during the firing process. We have different brushes for
different types of painting and other items such as Q-tips for applying paint.
Pick colors from our wall chart that shows the colors of the paints after
firing. |
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Have fun
painting your design on your pottery piece. Remember that the paint colors are
much paler initially than they will be after firing. Generally, multiple coats
of paint produce a darker color. If you are applying a base color, it should be
lighter than the colors painted on top of it. Dark colors will show through
light colors. |
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When you
finish painting, place your piece on our drying rack.
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After the
paint on your pottery is thoroughly dry, we will dip it in glaze. (This is
sometimes a messy process.) Usually it takes two dips in the glaze, half of the
piece each time, to completely cover the piece.
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After glazing, the painted
colors on the pottery are completely obscured by the blue-green glaze. We place
the piece on a rack to dry. Drying time depends on temperature and humidity. If
the glaze does not dry thoroughly on the pottery before firing, there are
likely to be surface imperfections. |
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After the
glaze has dried, we load your pottery piece in one of our kilns with other
glazed pottery. The pottery is arranged carefully using kiln "furniture" to
keep the pieces from sticking to the kiln or each other. Using kiln shelves and
stilts, the kilns are loaded with multiple layers of pottery. We try to fire
only with a full load to save energy. |
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The kiln then
heats the painted and glazed pottery to approximately 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
This takes about 6 hours. See our Firing page for more
details. |
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The kiln then
cools down very slowly. It sometimes takes as long as 24 hours. If the cooling
process takes place too quickly, the bisque may crack or other surface defects
may occur. When the kiln has cooled to approximately 170 degrees, the kiln can
be opened. The staff always eagerly anticipates unloading the kiln because it
is so much fun to see how the painted bisque has transformed into a finished
product. |
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As a final
step, the pottery pieces are sometimes "dremelled" with a power tool that
removes rough edges and minor surface defects. You can return to pick up your
piece after 7 days unless other arrangements are made. |
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