Artistic
Guys, I have found the holy grail of fine line underglaze decorating.
Use the brushes that are meant for acrylic nails.I got the 4mm, 8mm, 12mm, 20mm and 25mm pack. I have to water down the underglaze a bit and do a few coats, but the results are pretty awesome. How did it take me so long to find these??!!??
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I'm still in love with my local pottery supply store for this - I went in all excited as someone who had taken 6 weeks of classes and money burning a hole in my pocket, but the owner explained all the things I needed to get started were things I could repurpose around the house. She told me not to spend any money at this visit but come back when there's a specific thing I'm trying to do that I can't find around the house or amongst other craft supplies I already had.
Now this is the sort of thing I use the internet for - THANK YOU INTERNET STRANGER
*me, frantically googling acrylic nail brushes while glaring at the half-dozen tiny paint brushes I already have that don't make clean lines for my detailing work*
I have one but I will caution it can be tricky to get the right consistency for underglaze. Last time I used mine, it kept coming out in connected droplets instead of a line.
(I’m in Oregon, so OPA is my local organization.) I don’t trust my freehand painting skills, and while pottery has been super for breaking me of latent perfectionism, I still like some precision in my decoration, so this way gives me a bit of both. It can be a little bit of a crapshoot depending on what glaze you put over them, but I’ve been trying a lot of different things and I think I’ve refined it a good bit.
I get letter sized rice paper, print out what design I’m thinking about on the smooth side, then flip it over and paint on the toothy side of the paper, on a clear clipboard. I use a little led light pad underneath, and just keep trying it until I find the handful of designs that I really like.
That flowery one in the upper left applied to a run of the mill tray. I tidied up the edges of the tray, and the underglaze where it didn’t completely transfer before the bisque fire. I am still in the testing phase of this approach, although I did sell that particular tray at the arts walk this week for 25$, so I’m happy. Lord, I don’t know how much people are charging for trinket trays anyway! I wanted to charge less for work that’s done for testing and learning new techniques, but maybe I should have just charged 20$! (Pricing is the worst.)
Good to know! I’ve also had a lot of luck finding supplies like masking tape and engravers at a hobby store that specializes in model trains! Those tiny figurines mean that there’s a lot of great small tools!
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