Ceramic Transfer Printing
A ceramic transfer, otherwise known as a decal, is created by using silk screen to print a design onto special paper to be subsequently fired thus transferred onto a ceramic surface. While anyone can buy commercial decals and transfer them onto their own ceramic objects, if you have a silk screen and the appropriate ceramic pigments, you can make decals from your own designs. As you will learn from this book the process is not necessarily a complex or intimidating one. While there are lots of ways to draw or paint or impress imagery onto a ceramic surface, transfers offer a way to replicate a design multiple times; and the image quality is quite different from that of a painted or impressed image.I was interested in this book for two reasons; one is that I have a silk-screen I salvaged from the trash and have never used; the other is, I have a student who keeps asking me how to transfer her photographs onto her pottery. I have learned from this book that it should be possible, indeed relatively easy, to screen print a decal of a black-and-white photograph and transfer it onto a piece of pottery. It just requires scanning and then printing the image onto transparent film and getting a few materials that I don t have on hand: light-sensitive emulsion to coat the screen with, decal paper, ceramic pigment, and a suitable medium to mix in the pigment. The ceramic pigment can be enamel, for decals that will be fired onto an already glazed surface; or stains and oxides, for decals that will go under or in a glaze. Product names are always given in the text and suppliers are listed in the back of the book, so getting ready to print won t be too difficult. In fact, if my student wanted to, there are suppliers listed who will actually make digital transfer prints for her, and all she has to do is stick them on and fire them.But of course, there s a lot more you can do with a silk screen, decal paper, and ceramic pigment. You can draw onto a screen with wax to block out certain areas, creating a pattern or image, then print through it; you can print a solid or blended field of color onto decal paper, then cut out shapes and apply them to your pot; and you can even print directly onto a flat item such as a tile. You can make a monoprint decal by painting pigment directly onto the screen and then transferring it to decal paper. You can print many decals and combine them in interesting ways, or apply decals onto background decoration. The book even covers transfer printing with enamels onto metal or glass, and offers a number of case studies where artists use transfer printing in creative and often surprising ways.If you want to add decoration to your pottery beyond what you can do with glazes and underglazes this book will be helpful. Painters and other two-dimensional artists who are interested in expanding into applying imagery to clay, might find this book especially useful. On the other hand, if you are a potter with lots of ideas for incorporating imagery into your pottery, you are likely to benefit from it as well, especially if you would like to replicate your imagery. You might be really good at drawing, but if you want the same drawing on a variety of tableware, then ceramic decals may be the way to go. --Sumi von DassowPottery Making IllustratedMar/Apr 2011