Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Glazing! Techniques and Ideas.

So I have some problems with my firing process, so I wish I could share some finished pieces, but instead I decided to share some of my glazed-unfired pieces. In my last post you see some of my glazing tools, but I use more than just bamboo brushes sometimes. My last glazing I was really into using slip trailers and bottles to make thin lines. However, lately I found that I can create this "frost" looking line with white glaze on colors. So I have been trying to achieve that again in a much bolder way. the first time I saw a very slight effect from transition of colors, I got it by accident and it was very small. It appeared at the rim of a small bud vase.
I love the way it looked, but this picture is zoomed in so closely that its noticeable and on the real product it isn't from a regular distance. So Hopefully I can recreate it on a larger scale. I plan to do a few more mugs and bowls in this way and hope to get a great result. On this mug I used a dark danish blue and made these dramatic thick drip marks and sloppily painted the rest with white glaze. 

Other than that frost affect I am trying to achieve, I also love making designs with simple masking tape. I have only made two other pieces this way and loved the way they turned out. I lay the tape down on clean bisque ware and make my design, then glaze over it and after it dries, I take the tape off and fill in the empty spots. 



You can see that "frost" effect on this piece too
For the most part, if you are careful enough and use clean hands, you will get nice clean lines. Here are some mugs that have not been fired of course. One is fire orange and the other is sunburst yellow. If you like to see how these colors look when fired, check out my finished pieces at www.lizetpotterystudio.etsy.com.

If you do detailed work in any way, it is important to know your glazes. I know that the danish blue, sunburst yellow, and a green glaze that I have run a lot when in the kiln. So for the most part, they are not good with detailed work unless i use them in vertical stripes (like the mug pictured above), for plain colored pots, or if I want that dripped look (like the blue mug above).

In this last photo, you can see what I mean in glaze coverage. The green really saturates and runs leaving no trace of banding, while the turquoise covers, but has some variation and isn't as thick. I will post these mugs back up on a later post to show you the results of my experiments. 

1 comment:

  1. What is that cool green thing in the last photo? I want it! cool!

    ReplyDelete