In message , Sue Roessel
Dura writes
On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 11:58:40 +0000, Susie wrote:

I've made notes against the images regarding glaze, enamels and lustres.
I found a long time ago that it's possible to paint enamels onto high
fired unglazed porcelain. Did the ancient Chinese used to do this?
Lustres don't want to work without the glaze base. Or has anybody out
there found a way around this?
Your work is amazing ;-) Where do you get lustres - are there recipes
for them?
Do you have to fire them again after the glaze firing? Thanks! Sue

Hello Sue

Thanks for your kind comments. I've just read Steve Graber's post and
fully agree with his comments. This group doesn't just give practical
help and advice - they gave me support through a very anxious firing of
the sibling dragons. I can't thank them enough :-))))))

There are recipes for lustres, but I don't know anything about them.
There are books on the market. IIRC Alan Caiger-Smith is a potter whose
work is really worth looking at, and he's written a couple of books
detailing recipes. Making recipes up doesn't interest me at all. I
never was good at sums. I buy in prepared lustres - available from many
outlets and some a lot more expensive than others- and follow the
instructions. I was very lucky a few years back when a friend gave me
the remains of platinum and gold lustres and told me to go away and
play. I haven't looked back. What I really enjoy is the challenge and
fun of construction of my dragons, and I use the lustres to highlight
detail from time to time. The only warning I have is the effect that
the solvents containing the lustres can have. Be careful and make sure
that the area you're using them in is cool and really well ventilated.

Unless somebody can tell me different, lustres prefer to be applied on
top of a fired glaze and then fired on at a much lower temperature in a
further firing. As many as it takes, sometimes.

Hope this helps

Happy New Year to everybody

Susie
--
Susie Thompson
If you can't stand the heat, don't tickle the dragon!
to email me, replace deadspam.com with susiethompson.co.uk