Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi, Welcome back
to pinion pottery. In today's class, I'm
going to show you how I do this sponge stamp,
hummingbird design. These are put on with
some sponge stamps that I designed myself
using under glaze. And I first spray under glaze on the top of the piece to
give a little accent. It's high fired
with a clear glaze. To finish it off. You could design your stamps in a
pattern that you'd like. I've also done stamps as red
chilies and a fish pattern. So be creative and follow along in these lessons to see
how to make these stamps.
2. Supplies for Decorating Pottery: The supplies that you're
going to need for this class are pretty simple. You just need a pattern, isn't scissors to cut
your pattern out of whatever kind of sponge
you're gonna make. This is some one inch
thick soft foam. You can buy this at
Joanne's or a craft store. Sharpie marker to draw
your shape on the sponge. And then you need a
wood-burning tool. You want to be very
careful with this and you either need to use
it in a spray booth. I, and I've talked
about my spray booth in another lesson that I build it out of a box fan in a window. But you could also do
all of this cutting outdoors if you don't
have a spray booth, do it outdoors because
it really smells when you melt the foam with
your cutting tool. To do the stamping on the green where you'll
need to make up your recipe for your
undergrad glaze and choose the Mason stain
additives that you want to put in for
your colorants. You can paint that under glaze on or you
can use a sprayer. I use a patch six
number 62 sprayer. And I'll put the name of that on the page with the
under glaze recipe. I hope to see some really
cool designs that you've thought about making
with some sponge stamps.
3. Spray Booth (1): This is a picture of my spray booth that we
made out of plywood. When I first started
out spraying, I used to giant
cardboard box with a box fan and a furnace
filter propped up by window. But the box, the cardboard
box eventually gets sloppy. So I made this boost a long time ago and it's about the outsides, about 24 inches by 25
inches by 37 inches deep. And then it holds a 20 by 20, I think, farness
filter in the back, which you can see on this one is already getting
dirty and gummed up. So I do my sprain in there for the accent color on my
hummingbird design. I also use it for
my waxing booth. You can see the electric
skillet in there where I melt the wax and also that
smell out the window. So basically I just
opened the window, turn on the box fan, turn on the air compressor, and spray my hummingbird
background accent spray tool that I use is a posh model 62 little small airbrushed
glaze Breyer, it comes with this
little bottle like this. And I put the under
glazing the bottle, have to water it down a little
bit and don't use it as Nick for the sprain as I do
for painting on designs. And then I spray
on the background, which I'll show you
in a few minutes.
4. Making the Sponge Stamps: Now for cutting out my sponge, like I said in the supplies, this is one-inch
soft foam sponge. I drew a little design
hummingbird shape, cut it out of the paper. I'm going to put it on the foam. Kind of like cookie cutters. You don't want to waste any. I'm going to trace around
it with a Sharpie marker. These do not have
the kind of detail then that the ones that people
cut with a laser cutter. So you might look in your area and see if you find
somebody that can cut some with a laser cutter. But this is how I cut them
for probably 20 years. I draw the basic shape and then I make some more marks on here. I think I'm going to put the
use the wood burner to make some spaces in the Sunday to give it a little
bit of definition. And when you use
the wood burner, you want to make the
cuts fairly deep. That there's definition
between those shapes. And then I usually put a
few cuts in, in the tail. And those can be adjusted as you're cutting with
the wood-burning tool. Then I just take the scissors. I rough cut the bird. This like I said, this really is a rough cut and try
to cut on the lines. But you can always
smooth it up a little bit too with
the wood burner, but you can make a
pretty smooth cut there. These last quite a long time. Eventually you have
to make them again. They do wear out eventually. Sometimes depending on how good a job I do, the rough cut, I can make the decoration on both sides with the
wood-burning tool because this is
fairly thick foam. And then I can have my bird
or fish or whatever go either direction when I stamp
it onto the pottery. Now some of this can be evened up with the wood-burning
tool and that of course, needs to be done outside or in a spray booth with fans
sucking out the window, which makes lots of noise. But I'll show you that next. Now that we have cut the sponge out of
the large sponge and we've got some marks
on it where we want to make the cuts with
the wood-burning tool. I'm going to do that
in just a second. But you have to have do this outdoors or have
a fan in the window, like I have my
little spray booth here that I demonstrated
in another lesson. Just a homemade
box with a box fan in a furnace filter will
help to set the smell out. Right now I'm gonna
turn this day and on. It will make lots of noise. But I'll mute that out later. And you can see
how I am going to cut all of this
little hummingbird. Okay?
5. Spraying the Background: Okay, Now that you have made your pottery and it's
all nice and dry, That's called green where? Now I'm going to show
you in this lesson how I do my sponge stamped
hummingbird decoration. And we've already talked about
how you're going to make your little sponge stamps of any kind of design
that you want. And now we're gonna
get set up to do the background
spray that I use, the under glaze for. Now. I make my own
under glaze that I spray on and I also paint the
sponges to decorate with. But you can always buy
under glaze as well. But I'll put the recipe
for my under glaze that I use on my white cone ten stone where I'll put that recipe in the project resource area. You can see here that I have a lot of green where laid
out on this counter. I will spray the under glaze excellent along the top of
almost all these pieces. And it'll do all
the spraying first. And then I'll decorate with the hummingbird sponge stamps. Makes a lot of
noise with the fan going in the air
compressor going. Probably mute that and show you a little bit of how I spray
the top of these pieces.
6. Sponge Stamping the Birds: Okay. Now I'm done with
all the spraying of the under glaze
for my background. And it's time to work on
stamping the hummingbirds on. We already talked about
it in another lesson. How I cut the hummingbird stamps out of foam and how now I'm having someone with the
actual laser cutter cut them to get a little
bit more exact design. I use my same under glazes
that I did the spraying with. And I'm going to put the all
three colors on the bird. With just a little paint brush. I can usually get about five sponge stamps
out of each time I painted. I've got a little red for
the underneath his neck, some green and some blue. I put all three colors on the stamp carefully. Just takes a light touch. Like sponge painting
when you were a kid. Dampened the sponge, the
hummingbird sponge just a little bit with water when I started and it will get
wetter and wetter than more. Under glaze, you paint on it. Whenever you're stamping it on, you can tell pretty
much when it's out of out of under glaze and you
need to put some more on. Let's put some on the mug here. After I get all of them
stamped on with the bird, go back with the
fine tip paintbrush and put the black in the
wings and add the detail. And the black detail will
really make it stand out.
7. Painting the Details: Now, using a very
fine liner brush, I'm going to use the
same black under glaze. Hand paint. Little feathers and
the beak on each bird. You'll notice how just
the addition of the black really
intensifies the design. Finishes it off. After all of these
hummingbirds are painted, then all of this
pottery can be loaded into the kiln for the
first Bisk firing. In later, it's glazed
with a clear glaze. Hi-fi or to cone tin stone where it's very fragile in
this green where state, you have to be really careful in handling it while
you paint your bird. Now I'm painting the black. I paint the beak and the wings, or the feathers in the
wings on each bird. You'll notice that it just
makes the little bird, all of a sudden look finished, jump out to have that
contrast of the solid black. Now once again, the blue spray, the sponge to stamp birds. This is all done on the green
where it's very fragile. You gotta handle it
really carefully. Then I'm gonna put it in
the Bisk kiln, this GET. And then it will come
out and be glazed with a clear glaze and go into
the high fire cone tin kiln.
8. Project : Before I was ever doing
the hummingbird pottery, was making this fish
design pottery. These are some pieces from my kitchen from back in the
day when I did the fish. Once I started doing
the hummingbird, it was clear that where I live, the Hummingbird would be more
popular with the customers. Your project assignment for this class would be
to get some foam, some scissors and a
wood-burning tool, and make your own
stamps in some kind of design and practice
with under glazes, stamping onto some
of your pottery.
9. Wrap up: Thanks for watching my class on how I make my
sponge stamp designs. I hope you'll watch some
of my other classes on hand building pottery
and my next class, that's going to be about all my best selling items from my 40 year career
as a studio potter.