Seriously … what do you do with all that pottery? You can’t keep everything and you can only “gift” a few pieces to relatives and friends before they start running the other way. Unless you have a gallery or a storefront or are willing to spend hours taking photographs and posting on Etsy (then wrapping, packing and shipping), it’s hard to find homes for all the good, perfect or nearly perfect pieces.

Then there are the pieces that didn’t turn out quite as expected. Perhaps they cracked while being fired or the glaze turned out really ugly or … whatever. Some of these can be put in a box and be donated to a charity. Some can end up in the trash can. But there are those pieces that you’re still fond of.

Well … if you have a house (I do) and a yard (oh, yes), there’s a solution: yard art!! I have pieces in the garden, under downspouts, hiding under leaves of plants (pictures, below).

Lately, I’ve been looking at different ways to add a “something extra” to some of my pieces … so, I’ve been playing with decals and learned that there is definitely a learning curve in working with them.  There are several types of decals:  those you apply before the bisque fire and those you apply after a piece is glazed and fired.

The piece to the left has a decal that was applied before the pot was bisque fired.  It’s an underglaze design that’s been printed on a thin piece of rice paper.  Directions say to wet the decal and apply it to the piece.  I found it easier to brush water on the piece and then lay the decal over it and smooth with a dry brush.  It’s easy to smear the decal; so, it’s best to handle it as little as possible and leave it alone to dry.  This piece was glazed with a zinc-free clear and fired to cone 5.

Decals applied after a piece is glazed present other challenges.  The decals have to be soaked until they come loose from their backing paper before applying to the glazed piece.  The decal is fragile and can wrinkle or tear.  And after the decal is applied, it has to be gently brushed to remove all air bubbles; then, left alone for 24 hours.  Finally, the piece with the decal is fired to cone 017.

I didn’t realize how much he glaze color can affect the decal.  The moon & stars decals (below left) were put onto pieces with a dark blue glaze.  Mistake!  The moon & stars look green because the decal was yellow; blue & yellow = green.

Mistake 2: the middle picture shows decals that get lost with all the fru-fru around the edge.

The cats & dogs turned out pretty well.  Hooray!!  One out of three isn’t bad.

… and call it done.  Pictures after final firing of Sculpture 1.

The first firing was just too dark and “toasty” looking for what I had in mind.  The second firing, with additional glazes, was even worse.  So bad, in fact, that I didn’t even take pictures of it.

Instead, I ran to my computer and looked for some glazes that might work.  And for the most part, they did.  Colors are much better, brighter and more even.

I’ve loved every step of the learning process and will definitely be trying more sculptures.

 Part of the fun of working with clay is experimenting with various textures and procedures.

This tile is a semi-successful experiment.  I had some cardboard with a waffle texture and wondered what would happen if I added it to a flat tile.  Naturally, the cardboard would burn out in the bisque firing but, if the waffle pattern was coated with with slip before firing it, what would happen??

Well, the waffle pattern was saved but it’s very delicate in the bisque state.  So, I quickly added some glaze on top of the waffle pieces and then sprayed glaze on the tile.  In fact, the glaze helped the waffle pieces adhere to the tile.  This is what it looks like after being fired to cone 5.