The difference between slip & underglaze
What is slip?
John Britt: Great tutorial about understanding slip versus underglaze
Testphase for an installation
Stephan has created supports that will hold the drop during firing. Once fired, these supports are part of the visual language & composition when it is suspended.
Another steep learning curve: making hanging objects in the form of a droplet. As a round drop has no base you need to think about how you are going to fire it, because you don’t want the glaze to stick to the ovenplates.
Making our first press mould
It always seems so simple: a bag of plaster, a bucket of water, and you have read the instructions. “How hard can it be?”
Step 2: Check the mould box. Are the boards snug against each other? Have you sealed the seams with clay and clamped everything tightly? Your mould box might look like a makeshift little house, but if the plaster stays inside, it’s good enough.
Step 3: Coat the clay form and all the wood with green soap. Better be on the safe side, so you can extract your form from the plaster. So brush generously with green soap and use a soft brush.
Crater Glaze
When I read the book of Louiza Taylor “Glazes for the contemporary maker”, I was immediately fascinated by her crater glazes (p.140). They are a perfect fit for my landscapes.
After I made some testtiles I experimented on a larger piece and combined semi-matte glaze with crater glaze. By using a sponge for the brown parts I created a more natural feeling.
Link to her site: https://www.louisataylorceramics.co.uk/
Fired at 1220 degrees Celsius, this is the result. Click on the image to enlarge.
It is all about testing
Making your own glazes is a steep learning curve. I finally made a wonderful blue and green matte glaze from an adjusted recipe of Katz Burke.
For the basic recipe: https://glazy.org/recipes/27838. You can then add any colorant.
You only need a very small amount of cobalt to get these vibrant colors. The two on the right are from commercial stains (Silex) called Sea Blue.
Here are some tests withcopper oxide and copper carbonate. It even holds it’s colour on dark clay body.
The results on a small bowl
Glazing time!
A busy day at the Art Farm. We have made a lot of new glazes, that we are trying out on some handcoiled objects.
