Benjamin Gummere-Box 561-Don Swartzentruber- May 14, 12

“Tell me, What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

- Mary Oliver

With this newfound quote it has become a highlight in which I look through to complete some tasks in life and to decide which adventure to go on. How does this relate to printmaking you may ask well it starts with combining two of my newfound artistic interests. One of them is printmaking and the other is Pottery and or Ceramics. But because of today’s technology I had a thought that this process of mixing media was not just a new thought to me so I Googled it and luckily to my knowledge I have found more information of artist using this technique in different ways and on some ceramic websites and newspapers.

First things first to start this unique process you need some clay and linoleum. Once you have those two you can pick out or create and design you would want to have on a mug or a cup or any work that you may be going. The design can range from simple to complex or actually having two or more different plates to print from. So the process has to do a lot with timing you want to make sure that you have to designs cut out and in the linoleum pieces ready for the process.

The next thing you will have to make sure is ready is the work you threw or a piece of clay that you are hand building. For this process you are going to need it to be a little soft but not all the way leather hard because then you will not get the full effect of the design you may have cut into the linoleum. Lets take a look at one of the artist I admire in this process. Cynthia first sketches her design onto the linoleum with a pencil then holds it up to a mirror to see what the design will look like in clay. Once she’s satisfied with her drawing, she goes over it with a Sharpie then proceeds with the carving. She counsels, “if you make a mistake, try to incorporate it into your design. Don’t worry about small accidental surface scrapes – they won’t show up in clay.” This is something that will take some practice to prefect a design that you may want to face one way or the other.

This process is pretty hands on and straight forward you really just press the design into the clay make sure all the surface area if pressed in and then remove the linoleum form the clay and you have the final work. Now if the clay is too wet the clay may stick to the linoleum and then it would just mess up the clay piece you have and if you let the clay dry too much you wont be able to push the design into it and you may end up break the clay piece. This is not only limited to just pressing the design into the clay but also in the glazing process you could get the slip solution onto the design and print the design onto the bisque piece of clay. The thing that I like most about ceramics is that you figure out until it works you can keep trying different methods until something works and firing in the kiln is always changes things which is exciting.

Another form I will quickly mention is transferring or printing on the clay. This could be associated with the block printing or pronto plate printing in which you ink up something of a design and then press it onto the piece of clay. For this process you will need to bisque fire the clay piece of art. So if you are hand making a piece this process will be a bit easier because you don’t have to worry about denting

or having cuts in the clay while doing this process. It is said that this process is a big easier in the way that if you draw out a design this process can be accurate all of the time instead of hand painting the ceramic pieces and having them be a little off or risk of having a mistake. But this will open up yourself to many different ways into transferring an image onto a piece of pottery.

In conclusion there are many different ways to have printmaking and ceramics intertwine and join together to make an outstanding piece of art. Printmaking and ceramics are something I will get into as my pottery career is just about to kick off and I am going to explore clay more. Something interesting about clay and pottery is that things change all the time the consistency or the type of clay to the glazes and what they do whether runny or not and then the kiln which is the best cause anything can happen when you cook it at over seven thousand degree’s. so go out and try it yourself something that everybody knows when you are in Ceramics is that you don’t know what there is until you touch and feel it that’s when you get to see the full prospective of clay and everything when you indulge your senses.

BibliographyMcVey, Lisa. "25-YEAR-OLD SLAB OF CLAY: A Marriage Of Ceramics And Printmaking." Ceramics Monthly 55.2 (2007): 37-39. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 May 2012.

"Printmaking and Pottery: Using Linocuts to Make Clay Prints." Ceramic Arts Daily â Printmaking and Pots: Using Linocuts to Make Clay Prints. Web. 03 May 2012. <http://ceramicartsdaily.org/clay-tools/decorating-tools/printmaking-and-pots-using-linocuts-to-make-clay-prints-2/>.

"Ceramic Transfer Printing." Ceramic Arts Daily â. Web. 03 May 2012. <http://ceramicartsdaily.org/bookstore/ceramic-transfer-printing/>.

http://ceramicsnepean.westernsydneyinstitute.wikispaces.net/Printmaking+on+Clay

Reichert, Elizabeth. "Art Pots." Ceramics: Art & Perception 77 (2009): 16-21. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 May 2012.

"Image Transfer On Clay." Ceramics Monthly 54.10 (2006): 68-70. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 May 2012.

Kangas, Matthew. "Jeffry Mitchell: Once Over Lightly." Ceramics Monthly 56.3 (2008): 46-49.Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 May 2012.

Pudas, M., J. Hagberg, and S. Leppävuori. "Roller-Type Gravure Offset Printing Of Conductive Inks For High-Resolution Printing On Ceramic Substrates." International Journal Of Electronics92.5 (2005): 251-269. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 May 2012.