Ink jet transfer of line drawings to clay

I sometimes do little line drawings in the computer and transfer them to my pots to serve as guidelines for my slip decorations. Cynthia was asking for a quick explanation of how this works.

I'll post a description really quickly and I'll add some pictures later.

• Print off your line drawing. I've found that black works probably the best. Here is an example of my flower drawing:

• I usually cut out the printout and cut some slits halfway through it and various places if it's needing to go on a very curved surface.
  
• Soak the printout in water for a few seconds and slap it where you want it to go on the pot. I've found the pot needs to be on the wet side of leather hard for it to transfer well. If your pot is dryer than that try spritzing it with water where you are going to transfer the drawing.

• Let it sit for a minute or two, then remove the printout. The image should have transferred to the pot. It may be faint, but it should give you enough to carve or decorate using the lines as a guide.

• The inkjet transfer should burn off in the kiln, but you might want to test it before doing something important!

• Oh, one more tip. If you are applying a lot of transfers, like over the whole pot, try to just do a few at a time, unless you are going to finish your carving or slipping very quickly. I have found that when I do this, my transfers tend to fade fairly quickly, probably because of diffusion of the dye into the clay.