Hi Bruce,
There are now paint-your-own pottery places scattered across the
country. It seems that every major city has at least one studio.
From my own hobby of painting pottery at a studio like this, I can
give you a few tidbits of information. I'd be happy to help you
locate studios and suppliers near you if you can give me an idea of
where you are located.
Generally the studio will purchase their clay tiles from a
distributor, pre-made and pre-fired. This fired but unglazed pottery
is called bisque ware. At the studio, artsts can use glaze paints to
customize the tiles, which are then fired and await pickup by the
customer. Generally these tiles are suitable for use as trivets, in
tile walls or floors, or for outdoor use, though I suspect it might be
best to check on whether or not the tiles will be durable enough to be
exposed to your weather conditions. You may wish to check with a
local paint-your-own pottery studio for more information on suppliers
of the tile, as well as durability and mounting techniques. I'd be
happy to help you locate a studio if you can give me an idea of where
you are located.
Some studios also allow artists to craft their own items out of the
wet clay, then fire the items and allow the artist to decorate the
artwork by painting. It may be that your local studio may be able to
point you towards their supplier, who could work with you to create
the shape of the large work and then cut it into smaller pieces for
you. If you are unable to locate a distributor who can work with the
design you want, you may be able to start with a large composite of
the regular square tiles commonly available at the studios.
Assuming that you're starting with pre-fired clay, and are simply
having your students decorate the tiles, there are a few ways you may
choose to go about your design. You can use a regular graphite pencil
to draw as much as you like on the tiles--it will burn off in the kiln
when you fire the glaze. A special pencil called an "Under glaze
pencil" can be used to draw lines that will not burn away. A stencil
design could be made and used to quickly reproduce many copies of a
given design. You should allow time enough for students to paint over
their design at least three times, depending on the glaze you're
using, to ensure the richness of color that you/they want. Paint
should be allowed to dry completely between each coat, and many of the
studios that I've worked in have old hair dryers available to use to
hasten the drying process.
A quick Google search turns up various studios:
http://www.paintedpot.com/ (in New York)
http://www.strokeofgeniuspottery.com/ (in North Carolina)
http://www.clayroom.com/ (in Boston, where I first started this hobby)
Many other local studios do not have their own web pages, but are
listed on online directories, such as this one I pulled up on Google:
http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Crafts/Ceramic/Classes/United_States/
This website, Clayzee, has lots of good information and resources on
it:
http://clayzee.com/Education_and_Research/Classes_Workshops/Paint_Your_Own/United_States/
A search for suppliers of Bisqueware turns up many links, for example:
http://www.homestead.com/Countryloveceramics1/Pageafter.html |
