I was getting ready to paint some colored flashing slip accents on another batch of mugs. But every time I do this, I wish I could see better where I’ve painted. This particular slip color is just too close to the color of my clay body. Hard to keep track of where you’ve already been!

So I finally did it… I added some food coloring into my bucket of slip. The plan is to tint the slip so it shows up better… all the while knowing that the food coloring will burn out during firing. Cool trick, huh?

So I squeezed a few drops of yellow food coloring into my bucket of Smooth Orange Flashing Slip… and if you wait a few minutes before stirring, you get this really groovy pattern as the food coloring spreads. You kinda just want to stand there and watch!!!

Eventually I had to get back to work… so I stirred it up and started painting the slip accents on some mugs. I like to paint the top section as well as a center detail on each stamp. Since I only had yellow food coloring, the color change was not too dramatic. But it did give the slip a bit of a pale yellow tint so it was easier to see what I had painted and what I hadn’t as I was rotating the mug.