Engobe
Engobe samples on tiles in the ceramics workshop of Werkschule e.V.
Open-pored colourfulness.
Engobe refers to a mixture of finely slurried clay liquefied with water, which is applied to raw or fired ceramic workpieces for decoration. The open porosity of the body (term for a fired ceramic mass) is retained. Engobes can be coloured with a wide variety of minerals, pigments, coloured bodies or metal oxides, etc. They are used, just like glazes, for the production of ceramics. Like glazes, they are applied by dipping, pouring, spraying or painting, but without sealing the surface. This requires a high-temperature glaze firing.