Making underglaze pastels and pencils

In this blog post, I'm going to explain and show how to measure and mix opaque enamels! Enamels are painted on pottery after the glaze firing and usually create another dimension to the piece. This specific recipe is for enamels fired at cone 015 when used as an overglaze. If you've never mixed a glaze or any material in ceramics, think of it like baking. You'll mix your dry materials first, then the wet materials, and after all has been combined you'll mix the two. I'll be giving the recipe divided by dry materials and wet materials.

you'll need 

Firt 3134
Pemco P-25 (frit 3269)
EPK
Tin
Colorant
Water
GMC Power (or solution)
Darvan 7
Scale
multiple containers (at least 3)

Zero out the scale with whatever container you plan on using

Dry Materials:

Frit 3134 …………………….36.4%   (9g)

Pemco P-25 (frit 3269) ..55.6%    (14g)

EPK ………………………………8%        (2g)

Add tin …………………………10%      (2.5g)

Colorant ………………………..2-10% 

dry materials without colorant in container

dry materials with colorants

Personally, I wanted my colors to be bold. The pink powder on the left is Lavender (Laguna Clay mason stain), and the blue on the right is Copen Blue mason stain. Each is 10g,

This final step will depend on whether you have CMC solution or powder. For this demo I had powder, so added the 3g of CMC powder to the dry materials. If you have the solution, start with that in the wet materials section

Wet Materials:

 Water………………….. 9g
CMC Solution…………3g

Darvan 7…………..……7g

Once combined, the CMC powder/solution should create a gummy/elastic texture to the mix.

Don’t worry, once all of these are in one container feel free to add more water in order to create an enamel that better fits your painting preference!

Good Luck & Happy Painting!!