No Fire Pen and Ink is an exciting new technique that anyone can accomplish quite easily. There are very few steps.

Ceramic Bisque:

When working on ceramic bisque make sure that the bisque was cleaned very well so that it is as smooth as can be. If you feel that the bisque isn't smooth use fine sand paper and sand it. Then coat with acrylic stain in the color of your choice. Allow this to dry and sand again with very fine sandpaper. Repeat this a second time. What this accomplishes is to give you the smoothest possible finish. That is the trick to this technique.

Now use saral paper and transfer your pattern to your piece using a light touch. The saral transfers easily on ceramic bisque. You CAN NOT use regular carbon paper because it contains wax and the pen will skip over your pattern. Fill your pen with ink and ink in the entire pattern. Then spray lightly wiht a matte spray to help the ink seal. It is basically self sealing but the spray helps.

Now you can color the piece using the artist oil kit. Use whatever color you want and a small amount of media on a tile. Load your brush with media and then pull it through the color to combine the two. Apply small amounts of color and then rouge or blush with a soft brush. Once complete spray one last time.

This is the basics to this technique. The technique packets will work you through the process in much more detail.

Porcelain Bisque:

The technique is exactly the same with a couple of exceptions. For one you can totally skip the base coat and sanding process. Porcelain is totally vitreous and therefore needs no sealing with acrylics. Simply sand to remove any tooth (a very slight texture feeling) that remains after the firing.

Apply the pattern, ink, and colors in the same manner. The only difference here is that you need a heavier touch to apply the pattern with the saral.