How to Paint Porcelain : Using Wipe Out Tools for Porcelain Painting

Wipe out tools can be used to create shapes in porcelain paintings. Learn how to use wipe out tools for porcelain painting in this free video.

Expert: Sharlee McCulley
Bio: Sharleee McCulley has been a freelance artist for over forty years. Her endeavors have included doing commissioned oil paintings for individuals to murals in city buildings and churches.
Filmmaker: Jason Van Vleet

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Closed Caption:

I'm going to show you in the porcelain painting
another tool that we use called the wipe out
tool. And you have harder wipe out tools,
like this, and you have softer ones, like
this. You have a little more control with
the hard ones, but all of them have their
use. This one has the wedged point, very,
very soft. This one has the harder, sharp
point. And this one and this one are very
similar except the blue is much firmer than
this one. So you can kind of see the difference
there. And then we also have some that are
like a foam rubber. And you can do a different
technique with that. So I'll show you quickly
how we use the wipe out tools. For instance
on this, to shape flower petals or leaves,
and you can also make designs like this. And
then you come back with your brush and you
start at that and you can wipe out like that.
It can give you a nice, clear edge to start
with. The thing you need to know about porcelain
painting is it is similar to watercolor painting.
It is very important to have the highlights
that you want in before you fire because you
cannot get them back. So, generally on the
first fire, you concentrate on getting the
shape of your painting in, and the most important
thing is to have all the highlights where
you want them and the lightness that you want
them, because you cannot go back and add paint
on top to lighten them like you do with oil
paint or acrylic paint. So it's just almost
reversed from any type of oil painting you
may have ever done. And that's what you use
the wipe out tools, and I'm going to show
you how to blend this. And the synthetic brush
is to create these. So that gives you an example.
Another thing that we can use as a wipe out
tool is silk. This looks really bad because
it has a lot of paint on it, but it still
works great. And you can use it wrapped around
your finger for a real sharp wipe out like
this. We also use the Poly-fil. This is what's
used in pillows, you just get it in any sewing
shop or craft shops. You wrap it in the silk,
like this, and you can use it to clean around
your painting. You can also use it for wipe
outs to create things that you want in a different
manner. So it's another very good tool. And
usually when we are finished with a painting,
we will go around and clean up all the excess
paint around it, because if the paint's there,
it's going to be fired in the glaze. And so
that is some of the wipe out tools that we
use.