Overglazing supplies and materials

Overglaze color pigments:
Ferro Enamels from Warm Glass
The line of overglaze color in powder form that I use. Highest quality, HIGHLY recommend. I won’t use anything else now!

The 6 colors I use for mixing all the horse colors I need are:
•  Black
•  Ochre
•  Chestnut
•  Poppy
•  Saffron
•  White

The 2 oz. amount goes a LONG way so don’t buy a ton to start with!

You don’t need to buy grey, because thinned down black makes a fine grey. I also have Turquoise, Azure, and Reed Green for things like blue eyes and adding to the other colors for just that right shade you’re trying to mix.

You also need to buy Mixing Flux (zinc oxide) in order to make paints into matte or satin finish.

Chinapainting brushes:
Also a great resource for general overglazing supplies:
Ann Cline Studio Inc.
Brushes I rely heavily from ACS include:
•  I really, really like their line of Synthetic Flat Shaders
•  Fitch Stipplers 
•  Mop Brushes
•  Feather Edge Brushes

Glass bottles:
For storing chinapaint (especially good for your liquid airbrush paints, you’ll need lots of them as you mix colors!).
DiscountVials.com

Glycerine:
I find glycerine in little 2-oz bottles at Michael’s Crafts stores, in the CAKE BAKING aisle. It is used as an additive for icing.

Gloss and Matte (Satin) Clear Glazes for Bisques:
I highly recommend these two Mayco brand glazes for firing a clear finish on your bisques for overglazing. These work great on bone china, porcelain, and earthenware bisques. I thin them down with water and airbrush on, for best results. (You don’t want a very heavy coat of glaze so that sculptured details don’t get covered up, and airbrushing is the only way to put down even thin coats of clear glaze and avoid bubbles in the glaze etc.)

You can find these glazes in just about any online or local ceramics store. I like Big Ceramic Store.

•  Mayco #S-2101 Crystal Clear Brushing (GLOSSY)
•  Mayco C-300 Matte Transparent Brushing
(More SATIN than matte, but a very light coat can be sprayed on and you’ll get a nice matte finish).

NOTE: You’ll need to add ZINC OXIDE flux to all your paints in order to keep a satin or matte finished piece satin or matte! Chinapaints are by default GLOSSY, and will fire on glossy even on a satin-finished china. You can buy Mixing Flux from the WarmGlass site. I keep an entire separate set of airbrushable paints that have matte flux added. And a separate palette.

Super-Fine Mesh Sieve:
You’ll absolutely need one of these for making airbrushable chinapaint, to filter out the bigger chunks in the pigment powder.
Gilson & Company
Purchase the No. 450, 32um mesh, plus matching pan

Luster Overglaze:
(High metallic gold and silver for details like bits ad hooves):
Laguna Lusters

Chinapainting supplies:
Another interesting site with products to try, like their own line of painting/mixing mediums.
The Porcelain Place

Fire-on Decals for logos:
I haven’t used either of these yet; just bookmarked them for when I need it.
Dallas China
Giraphix

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Places to get china for glazing

Great resource for white ware:
Fun giftware ideas!
Maryland China

Re-issue Hagen-Renaker horses for overglazing:
The Little Shoppe
I order the horses in their color called “White” which will be a white body with light grey mane/tail and light grey shading on the legs, ears and muzzle. This body color can be overglazed into just about any other color. The cartoony painted eyes can be painted over with opaque white and repainted. Another good starter color is “Palomino”, because the gold body is a great base coat for many bays, chestnuts, buckskins, etc. The “Chestnut” with flaxen mane and tail is also a nice starting place for the browns and bays, with a richer golden brown body color than the palomino. White markings can be added with opaque white overglaze, though it is hard to do large areas like tobiano.

Horsing Around bisque bone china horses:
Horsing Around
Best strategy for getting their bisques is to get on their email list for their newsletter. Their editions of horses from Brigitte Eberl sell out almost immediately (usually new ones are announced in the 2nd half of the year) so you want to hear about it right away. You can order either a bisque or unpainted white gloss finish. Some of their china editions have not sold out and you can order a bisque right now.

Animal Artistry bisque china horses:
Animal Artistry
Donna has a great line of horses, especially minis, that are reasonably priced and therefore good to start out with.

Pour Horse bisque china horses:
Pour Horse Pottery
I would also contact Joan Berkwitz directly via email. She holds the license to produce china versions of most of Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig’s sculptures, and other artists, and does make bisques available from time to time. You could let her know that you’re interested in hearing about any bisques she makes for sale.

Westerly Ceramics
Westerly Design
I can make you an earthenware bisque of any of the horses on my website for $150-$300 depending on which piece. They are older horses but still fairly loved in the china collecting community, and I never have trouble selling a finished piece. Just use the commission form on any horses’ page and request one. I’ll need about a month.

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Display Products

Tile Display:
Items to set your tiles into like frames and jewelry boxes, plus a good overall online ceramics store.
Big Ceramic Store

Acrylic Display boxes/cubes etc.:
When you want to sell your wares in public, you probably need some of these!
Plastics Mart

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Chinapainting and overglazing education

Porcelain Painters International
This group is worth joining for a year!! Then you have access to all their online resources and forums, which is packed with interesting information. Worth the time just browsing through the stuff on this site! I learned a lot from this site 10 years ago when no one was doing chinapainting in the hobby and I had to find places on my own to learn about it.

Westerly Design Blog:
Here are some blog entries from my own blog that have some information and tips for overglazing. I’m also hoping to add some YouTube videos shot of me demo-ing airbrushing, hand-painting dapples, etc. in future.

How to make airbrushable overglaze

Series of Blog posts about dappling and using an air-eraser
     Photo of continuing dappling
     Detail of dappling on head
     Finished horse

Post with comments about detailing with paint brushes

Post showing various overglaze works in progress, and using a mop brush on an appaloosa

Post discussing the air eraser

Post showing dapple grey tobiano using air eraser for dappling

Here is a photo of what my overglaze painting palette looks like. The paints stay wet for months and I keep it in this lidded plastic bin.

Here is what the airbrushing spray booth looks like in my studio.

Here is what my current selection of airbrushable overglaze paints looks like. They last for months in the glass or plastic bottles, but if they sit around awhile the pigment clumps together and so they are re-sieved if I haven’t done any painting for awhile. The pigment settles out from the liquid (rubbing alcohol and glycerine) very quickly so you have to shake it often while painting.