Cathy, you changed my life!

I attended the Image Transfer workshop yesterday and it more than exceeded my expectations. I went hoping to learn how to make and apply decals to my pottery but I learned so much more. It's funny because I have wanted to learn about image transfer for a while now, and I bought a number of books and did a bunch of online research hoping to learn the secrets of the trade. The problem was that everything I read seemed SO complicated and that intimidated me.

Cathy Terepocki has developed some simple and easy methods for image transfer - without using harsh chemicals like many others do. She taught us 6 processes that I'm sure will become the new foundation of how I think about the design and decoration of my own pottery. I'm super excited to try them!!

Sarah has posted detailed instructions on her blog about the methods we learned in the workshop. Thank you Sarah - I'm sure I'll be using your blog as a reference tool once I get going!
http://printpatternproject.blogspot.com/

The lovely and talented Cathy Terepocki has a website that is currently under construction but she said it would be up and running very soon. I'm sure it will be full of more beautiful inspiration.
http://cathyterepocki.com/

Monoprint Tissue Transfer

Lino printing on clay

Screen printing

Plaster printing

Underglaze resist

Screen printed tissue transfer

My finished tattoo

I went back to my friend Sheila a couple of weeks ago and had her add some pointillism-style shading to my tattoo. Now it's finished!

You can check out Sheila's portfolio at http://www.atneedlepoint.ca/

There's no crying in pottery

But I still might moan a little. I bisque fired my sangria pitcher yesterday and when I opened the kiln this morning I saw that the bottom had blown out of it. Sob! What once once a sangria pitcher and two cup set is now, well, a two cup set. The bright side (because there is a bright side to everything) is that Grandma's teapot was unharmed by the shrapnel. Phew!

Sangria set

This is another project I'm working on using glaze pens over coloured underglaze. I'm dreaming of warm days on the patio - sharing a pitcher of sangria with a friend...

I made two cups to go with the set. I'll show the whole set once they've been glazed and fired.

Grandma's teapot

This is the teapot I'm making for my Grandma's birthday. It hasn't been fired yet - what you see is the underglaze applied with a brush and glaze pens. I've never tried this technique before so I'm crossing my fingers that it will work - Grandma's birthday is just around the corner and there's no time to make another pot! I'm hopeful that once the clear glaze is applied on top these colours will really pop.