I do some of my best thinking (and worrying) between 4 am and 6 am. Yesterday was no different. I woke up and suddenly realized that the stoneware plates that I made for an order were supposed to have little slip trailed dots and I had forgotten them! Luckily they hadn't been bisque fired. They were sitting on the ware rack, bone dry.
Typically I slip trail when the pots are leather hard. I learned a lot of slip trailing techniques from a decorator who workded at Salmon Falls Stoneware in Dover, NH. At Salmon Falls, all the decorating is done on bone dry clay, so I knew it wouldn't be a problem to add the dots at this stage. One of the benefits of working on bone dry is that if you screw up, it's easier to scrape off the slip, let it dry completely, then sand the area to remove any color that is left behind. I have had better luck working on leather hard pots. Occasionally, on the dry wares, the slip has broken off. It always seems to happen when your loading the bisque and it's a pain to get out the slip trailer and start doing fixes. These little dots should be fine. If any fall off it's a minor fix.
