Paper Slip Transfer Onto Greenware

The other day I was at the 99 cent store and saw a syringe in the food basting department and was thinking it would be perfect for slip trailing, so I purchased one. I remembered reading an article by Paul Andrew Wandless about paper slip transfer onto green ware in Ceramic Arts Daily and decided to give it a try.

I drew a trio of daisies on a piece of paper (photo is the rejected first attempt). Then I rolled out a large piece of dark brown clay and set it aside. Then I filled the syringe with porcelain slip I had already made up. Next I outlined the drawing of the daisies with some porcelain slip.


I had forgotten to start with dry paper and only mist it when you want to transfer it, so the photo of the daisy drawing is of the one I had to reject as the wet paper was smearing the slip all over the place.

So I drew the trio of daisies again and outlined the drawing with slip and set it aside to dry. When the slip drawing was dry, I lightly misted the dark clay and turned the slip drawing over and placed it on the dark clay. Then I misted the back of the paper and started pressing down firmly with a sponge. I pulled up the paper to see if the slip was transferring and saw it wasn't so I misted the paper again. Again I pressed and slightly rubbed the drawing against the brown clay. I checked again and the slip had transferred to the clay.


Here's my feeble attempt at the transfer. Instead of daisies they look like dandelions. I was happy I even got some part of the drawing to transfer. As I was rubbing the paper to get the slip to transfer some of the brown clay transferred to the porcelain slip. Then some of the porcelain slip got on the background. I tried to wipe everything up and got even more smears. Even though I was using a syringe, the slip seemed to come out too thick in places. With practice I will get better at drawing with slip. It was kind of magical how the slip on the paper releases itself and transfers to the clay. All kinds of ideas come to mind on how to utilize this technique. Back to the drawing board.