Expert: Sam Kelly - 8/27/2009

Question
Hi, Sam, I have a large Skutt kiln and do a lot of hand painted ceramic tile. My brushes are of all sizes and thickness. When a local restaurant asked me to paint their logo on 6"x6" bisque tiles and make trivets for them to sell, I knew the design was too detailed for me to get it right just using a tiny brush. Is there a paint pen for that purpose? I have found a few for painting on already glazed and fired ceramics, but none so far for using underglazed paint pens before firing. Please tell me you know of such a thing. Thanks, Nancy

Answer
Hi nancy, I have been down this road, two things I did, one: was I bisque fired the glazed pot, this allowed me to design on hard sealed but not fired to maturity glaze, once decorated I then fired to maturity. Two: I found screen printing much faster with no variations. I fire the pot to maturity(1260degC) and then transfer print onto the pot, put the pot back in the kiln and fire to 1120degC, this matures the screen print but is not hot enough to change the matured 1260degC glaze.

look at business 2 and three:
http://samkellystudio.com/clients/clients.html

Sam