Pen and ink drawings make ideal ceramic prints and can be reproduced in black, dark grey or sepia as well as any other colour. Care must be taken when producing the original, that the lines are not so fine that they do not print.
The general rule is to use a Rotring pen with a thickness of .5mm, on a smooth paper, and size the drawing 25% larger than the final size on the plate or mug. This usually ensures that the picture scans and reproduces well, and that no fine detail is lost.
Combining areas of colour with lines is the usual way in which coloured enamel prints are produced. Each colour shade is mixed individually. We generally print up to six spot colours for a logo, but can of course print many more if required.
Gradient tones and subtle shading between colours is obtained by using spot mixed colours and fine shaded dots to produce blending.
Halftones cannot be machine printed, instead they have to be printed on special paper to produce ceramic transfers which are then applied to the mug by hand.
For photographs and water colour paintings, the duo tone uses two contrasting spot colours combined withgradient halftonesto produce an image of greater depth and presence than can be achieved by one colour alone.
A full colour method of reproduction, and uses four colours: cyan blue, magenta, yellow and black. Since ceramic enamels are made from metal oxides and not organic dyes, one of the colours magenta, is not as vibrant as paper printed inks. This means that bright reds only reproduce as wine reds.
Spot colours can also be introduced for some areas of exact colour matching combined with four colour process.
Combined with colours.Gold and platinum lustre also works well when printed in combination with spot colours.
Gold and platinum, because they are both fairly expensive metals add a little more to the cost of printing, but also impart a much more vaulable appearance to a piece.
For a precious looking print for that extra special occasion, metallic lustres, both gold and platinum are available. These work well both on white glazes and dark coloured glazes, They are not however, suitable for printing on red mugs.
Matt aluminised versions as substitutes for precious metal . They are matt in appearance and low in reflectance.
A fairly recently developed method of producing 300dpi full colour process prints. Particularly useful for short print runs 4 colour process printing, as the initial set up costs are modest.
This method is also good for spot colours, though the colours are not quite as accurate as hand mixing screen ceramic enamels.Printing can be done by two approached, standard, cyan, megnta, yellow and black. Whilst for more vibrant reds, cyan, red, yellow and black are used.
To make your mug look different, extra prints can be applied to the:
- The base
- The inside top rim
- The inside bottom
- Inside or outside the handle
