Something next to magical happens when a Sharpie is placed in someone's hands.
The lines are clean and crisp and one design just leads into the next.
I love working with Sharpies!
My kitchen now looks like a manufacturing kitchen....dishes everywhere but no food in sight!
So here's the scoop......I bought out the white china dishes at Dollar Tree. I bought several shapes and sizes of glazed white china.
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| The magic of a Dollar store find and a Sharpie! |
I bought coffee mugs...coffee mugs that were tall and narrow, coffee mugs that were short and fat, coffee mugs with slightly fluted designs, and coffee mugs with little raised dots!
I bought plates...round plates, square plates, dinner plates and snack size plates! I even bought some red plates to play around with.
(Poor checker who got me, right? Took forever wrapping those glass dishes in paper to get me out of the store.)
I stocked up on new Fine tipped Sharpies (the original Sharpies, not ultra-fine), made sure I had some alcohol...the kind that goes in the medicine cabinet and a few little q-tips for my many mistakes!
Next I settled in for a good old movie I could enjoy while listening because my attention is going to be on drawing the dish in my lap.
I started looking at those dishes and waited and waited and looked and looked even turned it in my hands as if that would matter! And I waited for inspiration to strike me in the head like lightening....oh, but it doesn't work that way, does it?
So I took a deep breathe and got up the courage to put down the first mark!
DONE!
So there it is...the first mark!
YIKES!
THAT WILL NEVER DO!
Just gently wipe that stray mark away like a stray tear that slips out of the corner of an eye.
Use a dab of alcohol on a q-tip and wipe. It will turn purple but wipe it again until it is comes clean using the other end of the q-tip.
I tried prepacked wet wipes for eye glasses not the wipes for little bottoms. They work also, but I
had to keep the q-tips handy because I was using up all my wet wipes.
I make many, many mistakes.
Since I have the best job in the world...teaching art, I took all that glassware to school and let my students experiment on glass.
Yesterday one of my students came by after school to show me her finished mug and get final instructions on firing the glass...in your own oven, by the way!
(And I call it firing not baking because we are talking ceramics here not cakes.)
Before she left she admitted to me,
"I'm addicted to it now! It's so much fun."
Well, welcome to my world!!!!
Sing it Madonna....(oops! Cyndie
, thanks Lisa!)
Girls just want to have fun-un!
Yes, girls just want to have fun!
So here are the simple, simple instructions:
Draw & Fire!
- Place the glassware in a cold oven, set the temperature to 400-450 degrees
- Begin your timing when the oven gets to the desired temp.
- (Color markers lose their color in the hottest temps but red comes out red at 400 degrees in my oven. Most colors faded but especially the cool colors:blue, green and purple. Yellow turned brownish.)
- Fire about 40 minutes,
- Turn the oven off and leave the glassware to cool in the oven. Cooling takes hours but you don't want to rush it because cooling too fast causes cracks and ruptures to form or even breaking.
Most importantly, treasure your creative time!
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE!
Please, read!
Since I wrote this article back in December 2012 I have continued to experiment and have found a better method of drawing on porcelain which is dishwasher safe.
Any Color, Food Safe & Dishwasher Safe!
Using a product called Porcelaine paint which can be purchased online (I got mine through Amazon) and used small applicator bottles to draw.(also, purchased through Amazon)
I drew as usual with my Sharpie.
Then traced my drawing with the small tip of applicator bottle in whatever color I wanted.
Allowed to dry 24 hrs then fired in my own oven at 300 degrees (150C) for 35 minutes.
The paint is more dimensional so it is slightly raised but I think that adds to the charm.
As I write this I am putting a much used dish in the dishwasher with not even a slight concern as to whether or not it will come out as I put it in. It will!
So keep drawing with those Sharpies but make your dishes dishwasher safe with Porcelaine paint plus add colors. Colors come out fairly true!
And thanks, Lisa for correcting my two year old mistake. Cyndi Lauper not Madonna sang "Girls Just Want to Have Fun."
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