Ceramics and print by paul scott

The first use of print in the context of ceramics would be the use of natural sponges in Minoan and Mycenaean pottery referred to as 'splatterware'. it was mostly random producing a mottled effect. for centuries the only other form of printing used wooden, clay, natural or man-made stamps. The link between sponging and stamps wasn't made till a long while later in medieval tiles which appear to show this. Between the 13 and 16 centuries, decorative floor tiles adorned palace floors. they used red clay and white slip to create patterns. In the 17th century, ceramicists discovered metal oxides- the famous blue-white cheese ware developed and Dutch and English delftware using purple, yellow, green and orange. ceramic transfers developed in the18th century. first using copper plates by bat printing, which is like transfer printing.

"Staffordshire blue" pottery evolved when paper transfers and use of underglazing on biscuit ware became commonplace.

Relief printing

Bill Todd - makes biscuit fired stamps to impress clay with.

Rubber stamps can be used to print onto ceramics but they don't work well with water based colours.

Sponge printing

Is good for repeat printing and larger prints. Because you can do multiple consecutively. This is usually water-based media, unlike rubber stamps. Nowadays this is being done on a industrial scale (Meg just bought some bowls that are sponge printed). John Calver uses sponges dipped in bowls of stained slip to decorate leather hard work. He also works with clay stamps, slip-trailers and blending glazes. Veronica Newman uses sponges designs on biscque porcelain and opaque glazes on top. Bronwyn Williams Ellis uses sponges with undergalze on tin-glazed.

The benefit of this method in industry is it gives a hand-made feel to the pieces.

prints from plaster

Plaster is practical for making reliefs/engraving because you don't need any acid like etching. And it allows for fine detail. Prints are made by pressing clay into a 3/4cm deep mould. (Also page 78. )

Monoprinting

From fabric: Jerry Caplan uses 'reward velvetone' underglaze as printing ink. A design is created, thickly, on damp canvas covered board and a slab is rolled over it. They can be used to make plates or bowls with moulds.

Monoprinting from paper.

Traditional mono-printing but the glass is painted with oxide or underglaze, left to dry and a sheet of pottery tissue is taped on all four sides. The tissue is pressed onto damp clay. Ivana Roberts uses paper monoprints in combination with rubber stamps, decals, and painting on porcelain.

Screen-printing

Underglazes are used with 80s mesh (80threads per inch). Onglaze colours are finer and used with 200s mesh. Neal French uses patterned screens with 50/50 mix of China clay, ball clay to a yogurty thickness, mixed with oxides for pigment. This doesn't produce precise prints.

Onglaze colours are most commonly used as inks in decals. Prints are applied on a glazed surface and only require a low temp firing afterwards.

TINA VLASSOPULOS

London-based ceramicist one of the leading hand-builders of sculptural forms. With a BA Honors in ceramics from Bristol Polytechnic,

coiling, slabbing and pinching carefully burnished earthenware very low temp firing 940°C. Burnishing compresses the surface of the clay making my pieces strong while also giving them a beautiful, tactile surface

Inspired by performing arts sense of movement and balance organic, natural shapes,

Jochen Holz

Holz makes contemporary, vibrant, organically shaped lampworked glassware. Originally he was trained in lampworking in Germany and went on to study glass at Edinburgh College of Art and The RCA.

Holz prefers to work with borosilicate glass because of its resistance to heat making it ideal for lampworking. His pieces are functional as well as decorative. His method of working is spontaneous and intuitive; working in conjunction with the material and its restrictions. The improvisational method of making means that each piece is unique.

New Work

I'm obsessed with the quality I achieved by spraying this glaze. I sprayed it very thinly which has caused these beautiful gradients betweeen purple and a soft grey/blue.

Kokoschka

Oskar Kokoschka worked in paint, poetry, writing and he taught in Austria. Though best known for his expressionist paintings and his ideas which influenced the Viennese Expressionist movement. He was also the Nazis' example of 'degenerate artist'. An idea formed on the basis of hatred of contemporary, progressive art movement like impressionism, which resulted in the Nazis purge of 'degenerate culture. When Hitler came to power, there were mass book burnings, painters, musicians and similar were fired. When Kokoschka's first paintings became celebrated he was expelled from the academy in Vienna. This inspired his move to Prague in 1934 and later the UK in '38. Kokoschka spent the war painting anti-fascist paintings from Cornwall. Above a trio of some of his most famous works The Prometheus Triptych- Hades and Persephone, apocalypse, Prometheus, 1950. These were created later in his life after his move to Switzerland in '53. It was actually a commission for Count Antoine Seilern's ceiling. Combining baroque with expressionist style Kokoschka adapted biblical mythology to comment on his fears for humanity since the Second World War and start of the Cold War. According to Kokoschka the only way society could avoid the apocalypse - in the middle painting- would be to prioritise love, compassion and maternal values depicted by the Goddess Demeter receiving her daughter Persephone as she's freed from the God of the underworld Hades.