How we do it - Decorating
Everything we make at ANTA is made by hand. Training, a degree of natural ability, together with hours of practice, makes for the perfect piece. Our stoneware is decorated entirely by hand and is no exception. Arguably the technique requires the greatest skill of all our manufacturing processes. Elaine is our head decorator and having worked for us for 30 years she has decorated tens of thousands of pieces herself and trained her team to emulate her high standards.
We glaze our stoneware first before we apply the decoration. We mix our own colours to a consistency of watercolour.
We apply this using shapes hand cut from a sponge or with sponge rollers.
The glazed surface is porous and absorbs the colour quickly. It dries leaving a chalky finish, which once fired to over 1200 degrees, melts to leave a gloss finish. As well as the texture, many of the colours change after firing, some quite dramatically.
The kiln is gas fired and the cycle takes up to 15 hours. We load the it in the afternoon, fire it overnight and by mid morning the next day it is cool enough to unload ready to be carefully packed and sent to our customers all over the world.
