New Glaze Tests

Glazing is the one pottery task that I have struggled to embrace.  I am always worried that I have messed up a beautiful piece and there is not much you can do about it.  In addition, waiting 24 hours to see if you did screw up is excruciatingly painful for a person not blessed with patience.  I have found that documenting my tests is making the process more bearable, even fun.  The tests below are done on a medium dark stoneware clay.  Some of the colors we use regularly and others are new.  As always, if you have questions or want recipes, just ask!

This is one of our favorites.  It is Celestial Blue over Red Gold.  It is drippy and runny often drips on our shelves.  But, if we are careful it makes beautiful pots.

 Red painted over Red Gold.  This combination is pretty stable and doesn't run.  It does vary in the redness.

 I was pretty excited to try this combination and a little disappointed in the results.  This is Moss painted over Red Gold.  It started as a stripe of paint, and as you can see, ended up a blob of color because it ran so bad.

 This tile is Celestial Blue.  We use this as an accent color a lot.  It is nice alone or on top of other colors.

 This is Tom Grey Red.  We love it alone or with other colors layered on top.

 Scapes.  This is a glaze combo that starts with Tom Grey Red as a base and has orange, red and blue layered on top.  It is slightly unpredictable as it can turn out with very vibrant colors or muted with lots of gold like the tile on the left.

 This is the most interesting test I did.  I think we may have mixed the glaze wrong.  This is called Field Mouse Brown.  It looks very black except for where the glaze broke over the number.  We will be mixing and testing this again.

 Spearmint with some alterations.  I love this color but it didn't photograph very well.  It has some hints of blue green in it.  I think we will be mixing another batch and see if we can lighten it up just a little bit.





This is Everglade.  It looks a lot like the Gun Metal Green that we already use.





I am already working on the tiles for my next glaze.   I am hoping in the next month or so we will have some new colors to put in our Etsy shop.

First Glaze of 2012

Our first glaze went well. The kiln fired perfectly after being repaired and the studio is getting back to normal. I have decided that as we expand we need to document our glazes better. Arne and I are always trying new glazes and we don't always remember which recipes we have tried and if we like them because we usually sell the little pots we test on.

I can spend hours looking for new glaze colors and it is hard to find pictures of glaze tests done

on the dark stoneware we use. I hope the tests I post will help other potters in search of glaze recipes with pictures. We use a combination of our own mixed and purchased glazes and fire to a true cone six. If you have questions about the glazes or recipes, just ask. We are happy to share.

This is Muted Gold. It is a stable glaze and doesn't run much. It is rich and we don't use it as

much as we should so I will be doing tests with this layered with other glazes.

Ron Roy's Sapphire Blue. Beautiful glaze

that is runny if applied too thick. I have

been experimenting with this glaze

as I have had requests for pieces

in this color. I have struggled

with it, but for some reason

it behaved perfectly in this firing and

I think I have figured out the trick

to using it!

Eggshell. This has a blue tint to it

and looks thin on our dark clay. It is not one of my favorites and now I remember why!

Antique Iron. I love this glaze because it breaks to a rusty brown and there are hints of green and blue. It is nice layered with other glazes (sometimes runny) and this picture does not do it justice.

Autumn Frost. You can't tell in this picture but this is a little iridescent. I wanted a base tile for this as I am going to experiment layering this with other colors.

Tile was dipped in Autumn Frost, dried and then dipped in Due's White. I wasn't impressed with the results.

This one is interesting and I am going to experiment with it more. It was dipped in Tom Grey's Red, dried and then dipped in Antique Iron. It isn't the honey color I was hoping for but I like it.

I tried a variation of this on a cup in an attempt to get a rustic looking red. It turned out almost gold. I haven't decided if I like it or not. The tile was dipped in Licorice, dried and then dipped in Tom Grey's Red.

The base on this tile is Shino. We use it a lot. I dipped this one in Shino and put a strip of Moss Green across the middle. Again, I was not impressed with the result.

Moss Green. I love this glaze and I will be doing more tests with it.

Eggplant. It has some interesting blue, purple and green in it. I am going to try layering it over some other glazes.

Pottery Snobs

Last night the hubs and I were part of the Archie Bray ceramic stroll. It was a blast and we met potters from all over the world. Some had some very kind words and others not so much.

I very much admire the potters who work and live at the Archie Bray. They have helped us artistically and also technically with our pottery woes. Because we are such newbies to the pottery world it isn't uncommon for us to take a piece of pottery to the Bray and ask what went wrong (thanks Josh!) or to ask about chemicals and why we can't get a color right. Most of the potters at the Bray are true artists, love their work and are humble about their own fabulous pieces. Their works are meant to be statements about society, fantasy, personal torture and other various topics important to the artist as stated in their bios. Some of the work is so beautiful that you get lost in the piece but is often too beautiful to fit into and survive my mountain life and some of the other work is, well, difficult to interpret. However, whatever the clay becomes, I always look at the work, ask questions and try to soak up as much "artistic" mojo as I can.

Because the Bray walk brought so many people from all over the word, I encountered my very first pottery snobs. Elitists in the pottery world who believe that if you do not have the correct education or have not studied under the right master your work is crap and you have no right to share it. A woman actually came into our display last night and picked up a mug that my husband worked so hard on and said "can you believe this "tourist pottery"". I was stunned and felt bad for the hubs who was very proud of his mug and actually did have some tourists asking to buy it. Correct me if I am wrong -- but people have been making mud pots for hundreds of years --functional pots that hold water and food and I am pretty sure that none of them were eating out of a sculpture of a human with a rat head holding a spear.

So there it is. Maybe I am the pottery snob. I want to hold my pottery and use it in my everyday life. And while I will never purchase the human rat sculpture, I will admire it for the artistic statement and the work that went into creating the piece. I would never walk into someone's space and dismiss the work they created and were brave enough to share with the world. Maybe it all just comes down to good manners and being polite and wondering who raised these rude people anyway!

February 2011

It is already February--wow! I am looking out the window at the snow covered mountains as I write this -- so ready for spring! I have been looking at seed catalogs and online sites planning my garden -- the more I look the more anxious I am getting. I hope to talk the hubs into going to the hardware store to check out a green house kit that a friend told me about.

We did our first show this weekend and didn't get the people out that we expected. The weather was miserable and people were just staying home. We did see some of our regular customers who added to their collection. It is so fun to talk to someone who has several of our pottery pieces and came to the show to add to their collection.

We made four vases thinking that they would be good sellers for the Valentine themed show. We filled the vases with flowers -- and much to our surprise they didn't get much attention. We sold one of the four. Just goes to show that you can never predict what people are in the mood for! We did sell a lot of wine cups -- my personal favorite that we make and we sold some jewelry bowls. It is funny that when we have the jewelry bowls displayed how everyone looks at the jewelry and I have to tell them it is just for display. I wonder if we should start making jewelry?

At the end of the day -- we had a good time, paid for our booth and had a little left over.

Glaze Results

We did a fast cone 6 firing last night with some dissapointing results. We have decided not to do the fast firing anymore even though it is fun to see your pieces quickly! These cups were dipped in Coyote Shino and then the top third was dipped in Coyote Mottled Blue. I like these and plan on making more.

This bowl was dipped in Coyote Shino and the rim was dipped in Coyote Mottled Blue. A squirt of Mottled Blue was put in the middle. I like this bowl a lot but the Shino ran and the bottom was chipped pulling it off the kiln shelves.

I really like this color combination. The top third of the cups were brushed with Coyote Cinnamon Stick and then were brushed all over and inside with Coyote Red Gold. The Red Gold runs and one of the cups was damaged from being stuck to the kiln shelf. Will make these again with a slow fire.

These cups were made for my son, Dylan. They were dipped in Black and then the top third was dipped in Gun Metal Green. This combination has been very predictable and turns out nice.

This is a new glaze for us. It is an Opulence glaze called Galaxy. The cups were dipped in Galaxy and the top third was dipped in Coyote Eggplant. I am not sure I like the color....but it is growing on me.

These cups were done at Arne's request for his horseshoe team. The top one third was dipped in Gun Metal Green and then they were dipped in Shino. Again, the Shino moved and dripped on the kiln shelf damaged one of four cups.

This large bowl was very disappointing. I love the shape of the bowl but I am not happy with the glaze. This bowl was dipped in Galaxy and then dipped in Antique Iron. I then put assorted blue and green glass shards in the bottom. Not happy with the result.

Arne's Planter. This was such a nice piece. The top one third was dipped in Gun Metal Green and then the whole thing was dipped in Shino. He then scraped off the Shino in spots so the green would show through. The Shino on this piece moved and it was damaged when taken off the kiln shelf. Like I said, no more fast fires!

Arne's Manly Cups. These turned out very nice! The rims were dipped in Gun Metal Green. Two thirds of the cup was dipped vertical in Shino and one third dipped in Antique Iron. Very nice and very manly!!!

A first attempt at a wine chiller. This is Arne's piece. It was dipped in Galaxy. The inside and rim was done in Mottled Blue. As I said before, we are still deciding if we like the Galaxy.

The best piece from this firing was Arne's bowl. He does such a good job putting glazes together to make great colors. This bowl has Eggplant applied thick on the inside. Then Calico was put over the Eggplant. The outside and rim was done in Antique Iron. Beautiful!

This is McKi's (our eleven year old daughter) first attempt at throwing. Not bad for a first time. The top one third of the bowl was dipped in Gun Metal Green and then dipped in Shino. The Shino ran and the bowl has little glaze legs on it.

This last piece was a custom made bowl for one of our friends. They asked for a large bowl with a spout and then picked out the colors. It was brushed with Shino and applied thick. The rim was dipped in Mottled Blue. I think he did a great job making a custom piece and I think our friends will be thrilled.

Awesome Friday

Today was a great day. Stayed home from work to do some pottery. At one point I really wanted to gamble, but stayed strong and threw pots instead. Yay me!!! I am getting itchy to do a firing and really want to start experimenting with different glazes. The garden is looking great. The delphiniums are starting to get flower buds and we have flowers on the vegetables. We have about eight green tomatoes and the cherry tomatoes started from seed are getting blooms. The yard looks great, although is seems like it go a slow start this year. Good thing I am blogging I will be able to compare progress next year.