I love learning new technique and especially old ones.
Irene de Watteville is an expert on portuguese porcelaine and is teaching me the ins and outs of making tiles from scratch. There is quite a bit of physics and chemistry involved and I wish I had paid attention in class.
You have to think about the shrink factor while tiles are air drying and then cooked. You cut the tiles, 1,1 times bigger to be exact. Therefore a 6.6 inches tile will become 6x6 inches once it has gone through air drying for a week and cooked twice. You cook it once and I haven't gone thought cooking procedure yet to know how high but in the thousands degrees..first the biscuit (the base) second after adding the glaze and free hand painted design on top.
Painting on uncooked glaze is odd at first because the paint does not glide easily, it absorbs like a sponge, or a very brittle plaster of paris. So you get to know your brushes pretty well. How much paint they can take (or copper oxide for green for instance). again colors are all about chemistry and that I have to figure out too. Depending on how high you cook you colors the color will change. a lot more to learn...to see picture of the process for now, click on the title.
Good day,
V
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