Laser Toner Transfer Decals

Here are some more experiments with the laser decals.  I used a black and white photo that I took to make the decal.  I increased the contrast a bit before printing it out.  I love the way this works.  These are water slide decals.  The toner in the in the laser printer has to contain iron and it has to be a black and white only printer.  At Chico State we get our transfer paper from Bel Decal.  Here is some info on the process from Ceramic Arts Daily.

I actually layered this transfer over another image making technique.  This drippy, black, organic shape was created with a photo lithography technique similar to the one I was using last semester.  This technique is done on leather hard clay while the decals go on top of the glaze. This time, instead of using xerox copies, I used Pronto Plates and drew the image directly onto the plate with a sharpie marker and then inked it up with the linseed oil/mason stain ink.  Pronto Plates are are made of polyester and the technique is referred to as polyester plate lithography.  It is well adapted to use with clay but I would suggest trying it out on a flat tile instead of a round cylinder.  The plate is like thin plastic and likes to spring back when trying to wrap it around something.  This image is nice and crisp with the right glaze.  I did about six tumblers with the image and this is the only one that ran.  Glaze matters.  This is the only one I used a different glaze on.  But I can't remember which one!  I kind of like this drippy, ethereal thing going on.

This test is interesting, not because the tumbler is so wonky, but because I layered a celadon over mamo and it crazed a lot at the bottom where they overlap.  The crazing caused the decal to split apart along the craze lines.  This could be used to create some way cool effects. 

I hope everyone is having a great weekend.  I took the day off to be domestic.  Lol, like running around town shopping and then cooking is taking the day off.  But I had a good time and that's all that matters.  Oh, I did sneak over to the studio and unloaded some kilns, but that only took an hour so it doesn't really count.  Can you blame me?  I had to see how my stuff came out.  Delish!