Thread: airbrushing on clay question

I'm a newbie and practicing with this airbrush. I also do ceramics and pottery. I know alot of people use the AB for this, but I was wondering about how it would soak into the clay in the greenware stage. If it was like painting on paper or what. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I wanted to start Airbrushing to make some t-shirts for our church youth group. I have been painting tile murals and firing them for a while and am hoping I can learn to use it good enough to make some tile murals with it.
Thanks!

Hi
Most people use a Paasche VL with the large needle/tip as the glazes you usare fairly thick as I understand it.Thats about all I know about the topic though. You can use that sameairbrush for T Shirts. Hope that helps alittle

Hello ginger, welcome to the board..what do you normally paint greenware with ?? If you spray that same product thru the airbrush I don't see a problem....I've airbrushed plaster many times before & with that it's always wise to apply sizing first because it's so porous..but I'm not familure with greenware. This sounds like the firing of the greenware would be your biggest concern..I'm absolutely certain the airbrush could be a big help to you but I think you would have to use products specifically designed for painting ceramics..& that's probably easy enough because the airbrush sprays most anything..Your tiles sound very interesting to me & I would love to see a few--I've thought of this craft many times myself but just never attempted it..It's nice to meet you..

Yes you can use the airbrush on your tiles and ceramics. As Don said you must have a brush that will shoot the thicker glazes.

I did not do many ceramics, but I did do porcelain. On that greenware I used mostly a brush, but for the ceramics you could do both.. When I did spray ceramics I used a base on the cleaned and fired ceramic and then sprayed the glaze over that. You could spray the glazes too, but you will have some absorbing.. Just like when you do do two to three coats of brushed glazes. With the airbrush just make sure you have even coverage. (I can't remember, but I think I put food coloring in my white glazes so I could see the color change with the coverage. The food coloring burns out)

On the tiles, did that too and LOVED it.
The tiles I sprayed were already fired and glazed at the factory. If you go this route you have to find out the ones that work best for you. Some companies don't have quality tiles and you run in to breakage. Anyway, back to the tiles, I always bought the case of matt finish tiles, I would then do my artwork using underglazes on the tiles and then spray the clear glaze over that once the artwork had dried. You can do this in two steps, first the artwork, fire and then spray the clear glaze and fire again.

I am sure you know that the true color of the glazes will not show up until they are fired. Also MOST important when doing the tiles and Especially doing mural type work. Take your time and make your applications correct. It is most difficult if not impossible to wipe one tile off and not all of them. Matching the spray pattern and color depth is almost impossible. Second make sure you number the tiles with some sort of system so you know where they go back together. Trust me; you will think you can remember, but when they come out of the kiln you will be thanking yourself for numbering them.
Last but not least.. LOL don't break any of the tiles in the mural.. LOL been there and done that too and had to start all over again from scratch because of the color mixes it was impossible to replace the broken tile.

Hope this helps; Good luck with it..