Porcelain Painting

Porcelain painting is the painting on glazed porcelain objects such as plates, bowls, vases or statues. The body of the object may be hard-paste porcelain, developed in China in the 7th or 8th century, or soft-paste porcelain (often bone china), developed in 18th-century Europe. 

Recently, Painted Chinese porcelain from the 9th century was been found in the Middle East. Porcelain for trade with this region often has Islamic motifs. Trade with Europe began in the 16th century and naturally spread to the United States.

Porcelain paints come in the form of a dry powder and must be mixed with some type of oil to enable them to form a paint-like substance. China paint is an arduous and time consuming process to obtain the translucent effect. Porcelain paint is applied using various sizes of art brushes. The paint is applied in stages, fully dried, with firing in the kiln after each paint application. This process goes on, painting, drying and firing, until the design has built up in layers. Applications of in liquid Silver and 14K Gold can be applied, dried and fired to the completed project to attain special effects.