For my 30th birthday my husband gave me a small holiday in the 30th largest city of the Netherlands: Delft. This gift included a visit to the Porceleyne Fles: the oldest factory of Royal Delfts Blue in the Netherlands. Since they give workshops there, this had to be part of our trip!
Where to take this workshop?
Royal Delft offers several workshops: DIY tile workshop, Delfts Blue tile painting workshop and paint a plate. We chose the Delfts Blue tile workshop. During this workshop you will use the original Delfts Blue paint. How exciting!
How to paint Delfts Blue?
You start with making your design. There is the possibility to use a standard Delfts Blue design, but you can also make your own. Which we did. At home we made a design and took it with us. I chose a kingfisher, my husband an airplane. During the workshop you’ll color the back with charcoal. The next step is putting you design on a tile and draw over the lines of your design. The charcoal will draw your design onto the tile.
Next up is: start to paint! They will provide a quick explanation on how to use the paint and you can practice on a smaller tile piece. You carefully draw the line onto your tile. It’s not easy, trust me! Definitely not because you can make NO mistakes. The paint will immediately be absorbed into the till. FUN FACT: the paint you use is black. Only after glazing and backing (20 hours long!) the paint turns into the authentic blue paint we all know so well.
Because you can’t glaze and bake your till at home they’ll do that for you and afterwards send it to your home address. So when you walk out that door, you still have to wait a week or so.
Result
Like I said: painting Delfts Blue is not easy. And when you leave, you have no idea what the final result will look like, because it didn’t have that chemical reaction yet. Me and my husband were happily surprised when we received our package :-)! Unfortunately the till is not really good visible at the photo, but the result is stunning! We bought the wooden frame in the shop of Royal Delf. Photo 1,2 and 3 is the proces.
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