Scott Harrison on thu 4 sep 97
Would love any information on Mishima, the technique of incising and
filling with contrasting slip. What slips work well on what clays.
Thanks, Scott Harrison
Robert S. Bruch on fri 5 sep 97
I have found some success working with clays from the same
maker which have similar shrinkage but have different
iron contents, thus different raw colors when fired.
What are you firing to and what are you trying to achieve?
--
Bob Bruch rsb8@po.cwru.edu
Vince Pitelka on fri 5 sep 97
At 06:55 AM 9/4/97 -0400, you wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>Would love any information on Mishima, the technique of incising and
>filling with contrasting slip. What slips work well on what clays.
>Thanks, Scott Harrison
Scott -
In my experience, almost any slip which fires to the same temperature range
as the base clay body will work well. In other words, if you are using a
^10 stoneware body, you can use a ^10 porcelain slip. Or if you are using a
^04 terracotta body, you can use a ^04 whiteware slip (but, in fact, almost
any high-fire porcelain body will work well as an all-temperature slip, and
will work well for mishima on a low-fire body). In general, it is a good
idea to opacify the slip with 6-8% zircopax (or opax or superpax, etc.) so
that even in thin areas it will be opaque.
I have done mishima at various stages of wet to hard-leather-hard. The edge
quality of your carved/incised lines depend on the hardness of the clay, and
the amount of grit in the clay. For the cleanest Mishima, as in Korean
Koryo Dynasty work (the finest mishima ever done, in my opinion), use a
fine-grain clay body and a fine-grain slip. The Koryo Dynasty work was done
on a gritless stoneware body (really just a porcelain body with colorants to
darken it), with a range of lighter and darker slips.
Do your carved or impressed design-work to a maximum depth of 1/8" for
narrow lines and 1/16" for broader areas. If you try to do a
flush-to-the-surface inlaid effect with deeper carving you are making much
more work for yourself, and increasing the chances of cracking and separation.
Obviously, if the work is impressed it must be done in clay no harder than
soft-leather-hard. Carving works well in medium to hard-leather-hard
surfaces. Apply your slip with a brush or a slip-trailing bulb, and allow
it to harden to leather hard. You may have to do several applications of
slip to bring the level of slip up above the surrounding clay even after it
hardens to leather hard.
Once leather hard, carefully scrape off the excess slip with a flexible
stainless rib, razor blade, trimming tool, or whatever works well for you.
If your incised or impressed design work is very shallow, you must be
extremely careful when scraping off the excess slip, as it is very easy to
scrape right through the design work.
In doing multi-color Mishima there are several choices. If the colors are
fairly broadly spaced apart, you can do all the carving at once, and simply
apply the different colors of slip to the appropriate areas. If the
different colors are in very close proximity, it will be easier to carve one
color, inlay the slip, then carve another color, inlay the slip, etc. It
may be necessary to allow each color to dry to leather hard and scrape away
some of the excess slip before carving and applying another color, but if
you do it this way, do not scrape it right down to the finished surface, as
you will run the risk of scraping right through that color when doing the
subsequent colors.
I hope this is all clear. Mishima is a wonderful technique, and there are
very few people out there doing it well. Feel free to email me with questions.
- Vince
Vince Pitelka - vpitelka@DeKalb.net
Home 615/597-5376, work 615/597-6801, fax 615/597-6803
Appalachian Center for Crafts
1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
Robert Yellin on sat 6 sep 97
Hello from the town next to Mishima-
Just a side note to the Mishima posts-
not even many people who live in Mishima know that
a famous style of pottery is named after a calendar
motif(Edo Period,1603-1868) from the Grand Shrine of Mishima.
Old Korean Koryo wares resembled a design from the Mishima
Taisha(shrine)
and thus the name Mishima is famous. Mishima is a city
in Shizuoka prefecture also famous for the spring water
that runs down from Mt.Fuji(takes 30 years) and great eel
restaurants- a one hour Shinkansen(bullet train) ride from Tokyo.
I was married ten years ago in the inner sanctuary of
Mishima Taisha.
Sippin sake in Numazu-
Robert Yellin
Ric Swenson on sun 7 sep 97
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>Would love any information on Mishima, the technique of incising and
>filling with contrasting slip. What slips work well on what clays.
>Thanks, Scott Harrison
--------------reply-------------
Scott,
Simplest might be to just color some of the body from which you are making
the piece. Use Mason's stains or oxides of iron , or rutile, or whatever
(probably start at 1 or 2 % and up to about 10 % max. stain in the body.)
It might be best to use a Mason...or Johnson-Mathey or Cerdec stain if you
want blue or green...Cobalt carbonate, and especially Cobalt oxide, is a
potent blue at low percentages. (try 1/2 of one percent.)
You may want to screen out any grog or heavy sand...mix in a blender and
use it like paint to coat into the incised design...then use a flat steel
flexible rib to carefully scrape the surface to expose the incising.
If you use another body...say like a porcelain...it might ...or might not..
"fit" the base body...and crack, or chip...or just fall out of the design.
Work on the drier side of "leather hard"....not toward the softer "cheese
hard" stage....( and....( G ).... when I talk about 'cheese hard' clay, I
refer to the famous industry standard of VERMONT CHEDDAR...NOT Brie, or
velveta or Stilton or any of that Tillamook stuff either ! )
I like the smoother porcelain bodies to do mishima, and use the same
porcelain body, stained to taste...for the filler in the incisions. But,
I also like the look of a very dark , heavily grogged body with porcelain
mishima decoration. Nice play of textures...and I was lucky with the
shrinkage of the two bodies matching well enough that the clay "slip"
stayed put.
HTH
Happy potting!
Ric
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
rswenson@bennington.edu "Standard Disclaimers Apply" "Opinions are my own."
Ric Swenson, Bennington College, Route 67 - A, Bennington, Vermont 05201
- 6001
802 442 - 5401 vox 4621 fax 4582 or direct fax 802 442 - 6164
********************************************************************************
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Denis Whitfield on mon 8 sep 97
Scott,
I think Mishima is a form of decoration achieved by using a very coarse
brush on white slip which has been applied to a coloured body. The brush
marks allow the coloured body to show through the white slip.
I am sure this will lead to a discussion.
Denis
At 06:55 4/09/97 EDT, you wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>Would love any information on Mishima, the technique of incising and
>filling with contrasting slip. What slips work well on what clays.
>Thanks, Scott Harrison
>
>
****************************************************************************
DR DENIS WHITFIELD
Senior Lecturer
Coodinator BA(VA)
Co Director, Centre for Ceramic Research, Design and Production
Department of Visual and Peforming Arts
University of Western Sydney, Macarthur
PO Box 555
CAMPBELLTOWN NSW 2560
AUSTRALIA
email: d.whitfield@uws.edu.au
phone: 02 97726345 international: xxx 61 2 97726345
fax: 02 97723244 international: xxx 61 2 97723244
****************************************************************************
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