86 
KERAMC STUDIO 
TREATMENT OF PLATE DESIGN 
A. A. Frazec 
GREAT care should be taken in beginning a conventional 
design. Divide the plate into sections, halves, quar- 
ters, eighths, sixteenths and even smaller, if your design 
requires it. Take one of the smaller sections, and adapt your 
design by free hand drawing, to a size suitable in proportion 
to your plate. The color of this design is Persian in feeling. 
Outer band numbering : i. On tracing — Gold. 2. Dark Blue 
Enamel (dark Blue, toned with deep Purple and a little Bruns- 
wick Black, Yy Aufsetzweis). 3. Dead Leaf Brown (Yellow 
Ocher. Silver Yellow toned with Brown 4 and a little Bruns- 
wick Black). 4. Green Enamel, flat, for scrolls (Apple 
Green, Silver Yellow, Choom Green, 3 b, Brown Green '< 
Aufsetzweis, Dresden). 5. Turquoise Blue Enamel (deep Blue 
Green, Apple Green 2/ Aufsetzweis, ^ hard White Enamel). 
6. Light Grey Brown (Silver Yellow, little Yellow Ochre, little 
Black to tone). 7. Dark Blue, flat Enamel (dark Blue, deep 
Purple, little Black to tone, }A, Aufsetzweis). 8. Turquoise 
Blue Enamel, flat (colors above). 9. Dark Blue Enamel (colors 
above). 10. Turquoise Blue tint (deep Blue Green, Apple 
Green, little Black to tone.) 
Outline all design in outlining Black, except outline to 9 
and 10, which should be outlined in gold, also fine tracing 
finishing inside of plate. The dark Blue flat Enamel should 
be floated on, with a vibrating tone, so that it docs not give a 
heavy appearance to the center disk. All colors are La Croix 
except Brunswick Black and Aufsetzweis, which should be 
Dresden. 
jft .* 
TREATMENT OF SINGLE YELLOW ROSES 
Henrietta Barclay Wright 
FIRST fire. Model the flowers with White Rose, shading 
the centers with Yellow Brown. Use Yellow Brown also 
for modeling the darkest flowers. Model leaves with Brown 
Green and Dark Greem, the light ones with Copenhagen. 
Work out into the background with Brown Green, White 
Rose and Yellow Brown. Mix a little Yellow into the White 
Rose for background — near the upper and lighter part of 
flowers. Blend all together. 
Second fire. Glaze the lighter flowers with Dresden 
Albert Yellow, the darker ones with Lacroix Orange Yellow. 
Model again with White Rose, using Yellow Brown and 
Orange in the centers. Glaze foliage with Rose Green J, and 
model again, filling in more leaves and suggestive foliage in 
the background. Blend the same background colors over 
again, bring all together in a harmonizing whole. Paint the 
stems with Yellow Brown, Dark Brown and Deep Red Brown. 
*• •? 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS 
C. E. S.-We are glad that the supplement with the Chocolate pot 
design pleases you. Write to our advertisers for catalogues for undecorated 
china. It is marked " A. C. Limoges, France," and is we believe called the 
" Bird Chocolate Pot." Do not buy the one with the large bird on the lop, 
as it is most awkward, but insist upon the smaller bird and handle. This 
china fires with a fine glaze. Color the blue enamel to suit your taste, 
remembering that the color will fire darker — it should resemble the color of 
turquoise. The purchasing agents, who advertise with us, will always be 
delighted to look up china for you, if you cannot find it nearer home. Use 
the German enamel, Aufsetzweis, with one-fourth best English enamel. 
M. N. C. — If your enamel chips off after firing add to it about one-eighth 
flux. Mix your powder with just enough fat oil of turpentine to make a stiff 
paste, thin with lavander and breaih on it siightly to make it stay in place 
without flatting out, fire at quite a good heat and we do not think you will 
have any further trouble with chipping. Be sure that your enamel dries dull 
before firing, if shiny it will surely chip. If you still have trouble write exact 
detail of how you mix, apply and fire your enamel and we can then tell better 
what the trouble is. 
H. E. B.— In some respect the drawing of the cherries is an improvement 
on your other work. It is stronger. There is one great fault, and that is 
that your light seems to come from several directions. Make up your mind 
from which direction the light comes and stick to it. We judge the light is 
intended to come from the front, but where is the shadow that the berries 
would naturally show? They might not be near enough to the background 
to show a distinct shadow, but they would throw a vague one. If laid on a 
plate as these are supposed to be, they would show a distinct shadow both of 
fruit and stem. Try the experiment of laying your fruit or flowers on a plate 
when you want to adapt them to a plate decoration. The cherry which has 
the modeling in broken straight lines following the curve of the cherry, is 
best, it indicates the form better than lines that go across. The broken lines 
in this case might be slightly curved. Do not be too finniky. Such light 
shadows as would be found on the surface of a leaf in full light need but the 
vein line to indicate the form. Simplify your light and shade and leave out 
all but half-tones, thus making the contrast of light and shade stronger, 
little modelings belittle your subject. 
Mrs. H. E. — Wethank you for your kind appreciation of our effort to help 
the keramic workers and hope you will continue to find the KERAMIC STUDIO 
a necessary adjunct to your study table. For the inside of your punch bowl 
we would suggest a conventional border with the grape introduced in a con- 
ventional manner. Of course if you have used Rococo with your grapes you 
must use it in you conventional border. The plates by Miss Mason in the 
May and August numbers would give a foundation to work upon for a bor- 
der, putting small grapes in the place of the flowers in the design. 
Mrs. M. E. B. H. — We regret that your letter was misplaced and only 
found in time for the August number. However, apart of your questions was 
answered as we have given the china colors for Heraldry already- The 
monogram or crest has the best effect on the rim of a plate. You would 
hardly care to see your family coat of arms " in the soup," literally speaking. 
If you wish a monogram made you can obtain it from either of the editors, 
the price would be anywhere from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half, 
according to the difficulty in combination or the amount of elaboration. We 
will try and have some combinations put in the magazine soon, and if you 
are in no hurry you can send the initials and the monogram will appear prob- 
ably in September or October, without charge. 
E. O— Your note also was overlooked by mistake. But as we published 
in June a figure piece with cupid and treatment in china colors, you will 
doubtless forgive us. We will soon publish another cupid design. In this 
number we publish a head of Saint Mary the Virgin by Ittenbach, that we 
consider very fine from a decorative standpoint. It is intended to be painted 
on a panel and framed. 
R. A. E.— If you hive difficulty in tinting by the directions already 
given, here is another method which you may find will work more easily. If 
you use tube colors, follow these directions exactly, if powder color, mix first, 
with medium, quite stiff before following directions : Use a ground glass 
palette, a horn palette knife if you are using a gold color such as carmine 
rose or ruby, several pads such as described before, if you are tinting a flat sur- 
face. For cups or vases with handles or inside of any article, the camels 
hair dusters 4, 8 and 12, are be?>t though rather expensive, the three coming 
to a little over two dollars. Now take out on your palette what you consider 
a sufficient amount of color, mix with it one-third of flux, except with Apple 
Green, Pearl Grey and Mixing Yellow which are already sufficiently fluxed, 
then take as much fat oil of turpentine as there is color and flux combined, 
thin with oil of lavender until thin enough to flow from the brush without 
feeling sticky. If you wish the color still more delicate use a little more oil 
and lavender. If the color looks grainy it needs more oil. Pad till you can 
see no mark of brush or pad. If you are using the dusters, do not be fright- 
ened at the hairs coming out, and do not try to remove them at once, go on 
blending the tint with the top of the duster not stopping to finish any one 
place but going round and round until all the surface is evenly tinted, moving 
the hairs slightly with top of duster every time you come back to them, so 
that they will not dry in any place with a line of paini gathered under them. 
When the tinting is about finished you will find that you can brush off the 
hairs with a sidewise movement of the duster, and your tinting will be beau- 
tifully smooth and free from dust. 
