How to Apply Enamel Pottery Glaze

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Jenn from Clay Cafe and on behalf of Expert Village Ill be showing you how to take your ceramic piece from start to finish. Next I would like to talk about different ways that the glaze can be applied. There are a number of different tools that can help you out and give you the desired effect that you are looking for. Glaze can be applied many different ways. It can be dipped into a bucket full of color. It can be airbrushed on to a piece. It can be sponged. It can be painted with a paintbrush. You can use toothbrushes. Almost any tool to make different effects. I'd like to introduce you to a couple of tools and get you more familiar with different things you can play around with. First is the paintbrush. Which is the most common way of applying your glaze to your piece. But there are many different paintbrushes that can make your job a lot easier. The first is the square. The square brushes are great for blending. Do any large coverage of any large piece. it can really make your job a lot easier. The next is the fan brush. The fan brushes are really great for adding any texture to, lets say, palm trees, if you want to add a little texture to grass or any little special angled brush strokes. The fan brushes are really, really great to use. Next is a blender. Blender brushes generally tend top be a little bit curved at the top and are really great for exactly what they are called, blending. When you are taking one color to the next and really need to work the paint to get that nice blend, these paints are great because they don't have any hard edges to them. They will make your blending a lot easier. The next one to use is a round brush. Round brushes are really great for doing any petal work. If your doing some figurines and you need to get into a tiny nook. These are really great to use because they have a nice pointed tip and when wet they generally stay pointed. They can also with more pressure, create really nice petal marks. One paintbrush that doesn't get uses as often as it should is the liner. The liner is a fantastic tool to use. Great for doing any outlines. Tiny little freckles on pieces. You can use liners for any little really delicate brush work. I don't think it?s used as often as it should. Some of the more unusual tools you can use are something like a tooth brush. Toothbrushes are great for creating tiny little spotters all over your piece. When you use it, you just dunk it in your paint; take your thumb and sort of flick away. You can control the spray. Whether you want heavy or light. Some other more common tools are the sponge. There are two different types of sponges you can work with. Generally big round sponges like this are used for painting large areas. Really great if you get your sponge really saturated and you just dab away all over your piece. Doesn't give you a whole lot of texture so really great if you want nice solid coverage. The next is the more textured, everyday sponge. You can find this at any home, any where. All you need to do is, we cut it up here to make it a little bit easier and user friendly, and you just dunk it into your paint and dab off the excess. Then just sponge away and you get really really great texture. These are some of the tools that you can use and I encourage everyone to try one out today."