Porcelain Painting

Series Summary

Though painting on porcelain is similar to watercolor there are significant differences. One difference is that the piece is fired in the kiln after painting. Painting porcelain is actually much easier than you may be thinking. You may be asking yourself, "How can I paint porcelain?" This series is for you.

In this free video series learn how to paint porcelain from artist Sharlee McCulley. Sharlee will give you artistic tips for painting on porcelain such as what medium is best for painting on porcelain. She will demonstrate how to mix the paint powder, how to use turpenoid and denatured alcohol to clean paint brushes and porcelain, how to select porcelain to paint, how to use wipe out tools when painting porcelain, how to load a paint brush for painting porcelain, how to add more color to your porcelain painting, how to paint flowers on porcelain, and how to add detail to your porcelain paintings.

Video Transcript

"I'd like to give you an introduction into porcelain painting. This is a porcelain tile, 8 X 10, that I painted, and the pattern came from a piece of fabric. So you can get your patterns anywhere. I like to paint from photographs when do flowers, if possible. You can paint animals from photographs, you can paint people from photographs and basically porcelain painting is painting on a piece of what we call blanks. It's the art of applying an oil paint to a porcelain blank. This is considered a blank because it's not not been painted on. And as you can see the back is different than ceramic. It has a different glaze. the color's usually melt deeper into it. The way that works is you use special paint and mediums and you apply it to the porcelain and then it is fired in a kiln anywhere from 1300 and some degrees clear up to 1500, 1600 degrees. And what happens in that process is the glaze on your glazed porcelain softens, becomes liquefied. And the paint sinks into the glaze. And at the end of firing it will take several hours to cool down at the end of firing. And it becomes hard again. That paint is melted into the glaze. That's what makes it so interesting is because it's such a different form of medium and a different form of painting. It's kind of a slick surface to wok on. That makes it a little more challenging. And one piece of porcelain painted can take anywhere from one to 12, 15 fires. It depends on what you're doing. How involved you are, the colors you're using, whether you're using a gold appliqué as trim work or anything, it depends on how many firings. For me I typically complete a painting in 2 to 3 fires. So that's not so bad but in the old days they used to use lead based paint and that had brilliant colors but it was unsafe to use. Now we are actually able to eat off of our painted porcelain if we are not using something acidic like tomatoes or something like that, it's perfectly fine to use in most cases. But that gives you a little idea of what you'll be seeing today so that you can appreciate the different uses. They make jewelry with it. You can paint vases, casserole dishes. Kleenex holders. All kinds of things. It's no longer just painting plates and putting them on the wall. They're make for trays that you can use for every day. So it's really expanded a lot over the years and it's become for of a everyday and practical use rather than just an ornament to be hung and enjoyed."