welcome to the world of porcelain art!

getting started...learning to paint china

If possible try to locate a good teacher in your area.  PPIO lists teachers by state.  If you don't find a teacher near you, contact us and we will try to help locate one for you.

When I start a new student, I always start the student with a single petal flower, usually the wild rose. It takes three or four lessons to finish the first project. Initial china painting supplies run about $130.  For this reason in my studio I allow the potential student to use my paints, my brushes, and my supplies for a flat fee of $45 for the first project.  This includes all the sessions to complete the wild rose project.  Sometimes a student will finish in three weeks, others may take five. By the time you finish that first project you are either hooked on porcelain art, or you positively hate it!  China painting is a slow process that requires at least three or four fires to finish a project.  YOU NEED PATIENCE for this art form.  It cannot be hurried.

You will need the following supplies once you have made the commitment to a teacher and regular classes: a covered glass palette,  palette knife, china paint colors (you can start with a basic palette of about 20 colors), brush assortment of various sizes of square shaders, a fine point, a cat's tongue, tracing paper, carbon paper, a stylus, mineral oil for mixing paint, painting medium, brush cleaner, grinding glass, 4" to 6" tile, a small oil well for your painting medium and the most important tool, a wipe out tool.

All new brushes should be conditioned in the painting medium before using.  There are several books available on getting started.  My book, Notes From All Over,  has pointers on setting up your palette, conditioning your new brushes and contains about 40 different projects.  Wanda Clapham's book, Pass Me Another Plate and Gladys Galloway's Basics of China Painting are also both very good books for the beginner.   PPIO offers lessons for the beginning china painter by becoming a member.  Follow the link to PPIO to check it out.

It is best to select a pattern or design by another artist when just starting out.  The design work has been done for you and thereby eliminates the problem of design leaving you free to practice your brush strokes and learn to apply the paint.  In porcelain art, "less is better".   You must not pile the paint on a piece.  It is more like a watercolor medium then that of oil or acrylic.  When a piece is fired in the kiln at temperatures from 1380 degrees to 1600 degrees, the glaze of the chinaware softens enough to allow the paint to "fall into the glaze".  The goal in our painting is to have the surface of our finished piece as smooth to the touch as it was before we applied any paint to it.

In china painting there are six basic strokes.  The flat stroke, daisy stroke, "C" stroke, comma stroke, straight or dash stroke and cross hatch.  For the flat stroke, comma stroke, and "C" stroke, the brush may contain a flat load of paint or all three values of light, medium and dark in one stroke. I suggest practicing your strokes for a minimum of two hours on a blank tile before ever starting to paint your design.

When you have the first coat of light color on your piece, you must find a place to have it fired.  Most painters don't buy a kiln right off the bat.  It took me nearly six years before I bought my first kiln.  I now have five various size kilns in my kiln room in the barn.  Since I fire for my students, there are many projects going at once in different degrees of completion.  These require different temperatures of fire.  If you cannot find a china painter with a kiln, talk to your local ceramic shop.  Be sure to explain it is porcelain so it will be properly fired.  Take a copy of the firing table out of your book to show them the proper temperatures.

The above is just to peak your interest and barely scratches the surface of china painting.   It hope you will give it a try.  But as my husband tells anyone that will listen, "Beware!  It is addictive!"

                                                          First and Second Fires          Second and Third Fires

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