Delightful Decals and Transfers

Hands-on Workshop with Sharon Virtue

Sunday April 13th, 10am-4pm

Fee: $125

Limit: 12 students*

2 spots offered at a reduced rate of 25% off. Contact Workshop Committee (Email workshop@rubysclaystudio.org) 24 hours before registration opens to receive coupon code. First come, first served through honor principle.

This workshop explores the best practices in creating decal and underglaze transfer decorations for your pottery.

We’ll use commercial decals from Milestone decals– including gold luster–and also discuss the process for creating custom decals online. (This requires some basic computer skills). Sharon will share her tips and tricks for the application and firing temperatures, which require a certain amount of practice, so bring a few pieces of shiny and matt glazed ceramics to experiment. (Cannot be raw clay - the decal adheres to a glaze surface only).

There will be a discussion on the use of homemade decals which can be printed onto ‘decal paper’ with an inkjet printer. These decals require a different temp range, dependent on the type of glaze used, high, mid and low fire glazes require different temps, but allow creative freedom in the design process. Sharon will provide some of these decals for us to use in the workshop, to avoid having to recreate the whole process during the workshop.

Sharon will also demonstrate several ways of applying underglaze transfers, on leather hard, bisque and over dipped and dried glaze (pre-fire), and discuss how each process yields a different effect and the types of glazes that provide best results.

Participants are expected to bring their own decal sheets and underglaze transfers. Participants will receive a 20% discount to purchase decals and transfers in advance (online).

Participants should plan to bring 3-4 glazed pieces for decals (shiny or matte glaze will work, as smooth as possible) and a couple of greenware pieces for underglaze transfers. 

At the beginning of the workshop, the group will roll slabs and prepare some tiles to practice underglaze transfers in leather hard state after lunch.

A couple of bisque tiles will be provided to each participant.

Decals firing (cone 018) is included. (Kiln scheduled for April 17.) 

Questions? Email workshop@rubysclaystudio.org

*The studio reserves the right to cancel the workshop if there are not enough registrations, in which case refunds will be issued.

Artist Bio:

Sharon Virtue is a British mixed media artist of Jamaican and Irish heritage, currently living in Fairfax, California. 

She began working in unconventional ways with ceramics at Sheffield Poly in the UK in 1989. She started hand building life size sculptures which she later animated and turned into films.  Her love of color and pattern created a focus on clay surface, and she worked for many years using low fire clay and glazes to create ‘Clay Paintings’.  She has a strong social practice and has worked internationally in Mozambique, Uganda, Brazil, Haiti, America and England. She’s created mosaic murals and benches, worked in community gardens, and built several earth structures, including ‘The Cunnicle' during her residency at the De Young Museum. Sharon ran the ‘Mud Bus’ a community outreach project for many years from Ruby’s Clay studio, and has been awarded grants from the SF Arts Commission, the NEA, Haas Fund and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. This year she will be taking a group of ceramic artists to Japan for an Anagama wood fire workshop. 

She believes artists are agents of transformation. Her mission is to inspire, encourage and provide access to the greater community in the creation of art. 

https://virtuevision.org

https://www.instagram.com/shabanackle