Carbon Painting

Perhaps you’ve never heard the phrase “Carbon Painting”…fair enough. I hadn’t heard it before myself…until I made it up. But that phrase really has a place in my kiln yard.

Carbon Painting with feathers and horsehair are dramatic techniques. We use a variety of feathers and a unique source of horsehair.

We call our technique "carbon painting" because we think of painting and manipulating the carbon (either directly or the smoke) in a painterly fashion. Rather than simply laying horsehair against a hot pot or a feather in place of horsehair, we use a pallet of techniques to create some outstanding results.

You can find out more with our e-doc: Carbon Painting with LickinFlames

Smoke rises. How the pot is held or set will determine where the smoke will (or can) be absorbed. By rotating the piece while placing the carbon, one can get smoke to drift across the surface is some pretty and crazy ways.

Now remember, all this twisting and turning has to be done quickly as once the piece drops below 900 Fahrenheit the carbon will have less effect on the piece. If one starts the process too soon and the pot is too hot, the carbon will seem to burn into the piece nicely and then continues to burn away leaving a faint hint of patterning.

We like to use a variety of feathers but find ourselves using goose and peacock most of the time. The beautiful patterns on feathers have nothing to leave behind on the piece as carbon traces. It is the shape of the feather and the volume of the carbon that makes the feather useful. Feathers which are too "flimsy" are not very useful (as in chicken feathers). We purchase and trade for feathers (particularly peacock).

Our horsehair comes to us from a luthier friend of ours. We use his used fiddle, cello and bass bow hair, left over from replacements.

The work at the end of the day is usually different than that done in the first few pulls from the kiln. Where a piece sits in the kiln as it waits for its turn can affect the outcome. Even more profound effects are from the speed with which we work, as the piece cools quickly when it is removed from its place in the kiln.

The buttons, pins and bowls we make are individually formed...one at a time. The pieces are dried, sponged, sanded, scraped and colored slips and oxides are applied, or glazes may be inlaid before firing. There is usually an array of samples in our shawl pin section of our store to give you an idea of the variety we can achieve with our approaches.

Questions? You can always email Jim and ask him for some additional clarification. Or you can purchase a huge amount of information at: Carbon Painting with LickinFlames

 

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