Screen Printed Sun & Moon Bisque Plate

Screen Printed Sun & Moon Bisque Plate

While we were at the ceramic studio, I felt bold enough to screen print a large bisque serving plate. I had just screen printed the mandala and abstract floral tiles (previous blog post) so I was feeling pretty confident. In this post, I will describe my process and some techniques that were discovered along the way.

I started by painting the plate in an ombre style. I used a dark blue ceramic under-glaze slightly watered down and painted with a flat artist brush around the edges of the plate. As I got closer to the middle, I continuously added more white to the blue glaze. Three coats were applied.

I cut the Sun & Moon Ready-To-Use stencil to better fit the plate. Using a yellow under-glaze, I screen printed the stars in the stencil around the edges.

I positioned the stencil in the center of the plate, took a few deep breaths, and screen printed the design using the same yellow as applied to the edges. 

Because of the serving style of the plate, some areas of the design bled or smeared near the curves. Next time, I would use a flatter plate or a smaller version of the Sun & Moon design. I fixed some of the smeared areas using a fine artist brush.

After 24 hours in a low fire kiln, my plate was ready to make its debut. I was extremely pleased! For a first timer, the piece surpassed my expectations, and the process was much easier than I imagined. 

I learned that screen printing on bisque is very forgiving and extremely fun! We will be heading back to the ceramic studio to try printing on more things. I see a mug in my future!

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