Underglaze Pencil, Pottery Pencil for Bisque or Pottery

Great, used to label test tiles. Need to take care before firing as easy to brush off. Clear and dark once fired.

The media could not be loaded. If it looks this good on my awful pot then imagine how good it might be on something well made!I ordered this pencil as I made an awful pot that I wanted to try and make a bit better & thought I could experiment! The white slip was flaking off it and I found that engobe just started peeling away from it as it dried. The pencil arrived a couple of hours ago & so I had a go with it. It sharpened well and didn't crumble and rubs off easily with either a bit of tissue or a standard rubber. On one side I drew some simple leaves the other side of the pot I have drawn some simple trees and a stag, I found that I could paint water on to the larger shaded areas to make a more solid/ less grainy finish (sorry haven't photographed that side). As you can see from the photo my surface is mega bumpy but the pencil still made nice clear lines, which I was pleasantly suprised about.The only negative was one of the times I sharpened it to a point the whole pointy tip came off in the sharpener, the other two times I sharpened it, it was fine. This could be because it was posted through my door in just a cardboard envelope and hit the tiled kitchen floor with a bang.I would have preferred one pencil not two as although I love it, I am not a potter & so imagine 1 will last me for quite a few years, if not my lifetime! So it is ashame I had to buy two.

This set of underglaze pencils come well presented in branded cardboard and plastic packaging. I got these for my daughter as she's taking pottery classes and so far she's had fun with these pencils. She's used them for minimal and simple designs without a lot of shading. The pencils were easy to control and there were no issues sharpening them.

These underglaze pencils come in a pack of two in a cardboard and plastic packaging that protects them well in normal posting. They reached me in perfect condition and when I opened them they were pleasant to hold with a nice smooth outer surface. They come unsharpened but I found sharpening them for use very easy.Next I tried them out on a bisque clay surface. I should probably preface my findings by saying that I haven’t used underglaze pencils much before. I have successfully used ceramic underglazes for many years, but mostly only the kinds that come in either liquid form for painting on, or as a powder for mixing with water and again using as a liquid ‘paint’. So, I’m not hugely familiar with this particular format of the medium and it may be that there’s something I’ve missed (or was unreasonably expecting), but I do understand the basics of using underglazes in terms of things like making sure your surface is clean before application, the type of surface it works well on and so on.I used a piece of smooth earthenware bisque tile for my tests that had been fired to around 1000C, all pretty standard and a type of surface I have previously applied liquid underglazes to. First I tried using the pencil to draw directly on the dry surface and it looked quite good, nice pencil lines that reflected different pressures and gave the same kind of experience as drawing with a normal pencil. However, there seemed to be no adherence whatsoever. After drawing I blew very lightly on the surface to remove anything loose and it all just disappeared as a fine loose powder. I was left with a very pale ghost image of my marks. I tried again in a different area of the tile in case I had inadvertently drawn onto something that had prevented the pencil marks from adhering. The same thing happened and then again when I tried to lightly blend the marks instead of blowing, it all just came away on my finger. Okay I thought, well I know that my usual underglazes work well with some water, so I wet the tile surface a little and tried again. Better, but really only left a slightly stronger ghost image.My final attempt was to wet the end of the pencil itself. This was the most effective method, producing a much darker line that did have some adhesion and could be blended without completely removing it. I was glad to find a method that would allow me to use the pencil, but it only worked by constantly wetting it and meant that the lines were heavier and more difficult to control because the underglaze was now softened.Overall I found these underglaze pencils to be quite a frustrating medium and am unlikely to continue working with them because I can’t trust them to adhere to the surface. The listing recommends applying glaze by a sponged on first coat and then any painted layers to be added afterwards. This makes sense, but honestly, given how loose this was on the surface, I don’t know how even sponging would keep it in place during glaze application. Like I said, I haven’t used underglaze in pencil form a lot and am completely willing to accept that there may be something I am simply not aware of that I should be doing with these…or maybe this medium just isn’t for me… but as it stands, I am struggling to rate them favourably. I have given them 2 stars because of the positives I mentioned at the start of this review and because I did eventually find a way to get at least some use out of them by wetting down the pencil tip.