Glazed Mugs,

These are the way some of the mugs finished out from the last glaze firing,

 

 On the whole, the clear gloss covered the underglaze parts a lot better without getting rough.

 On the inside of them, I used a commercial glaze from Coyote, in a few different colors,

 These two below, I omitted putting on the wash of dark grey, and the blue is a lot paler than before,

 In the photo below are two mugs that show similar decoration, but show how the clear glaze has become a lot better, and also shows how the wash affects the final outcome.  On the earlier mug on the left, the glay lines on either side of the turquoise are incised and filled in with the wash, and on the later mug, they are trailed on with a brown underglaze,

 I like the inside of the mugs being a different color,

On this one, the white flower parts were masked with newspaper when I painted on the blue underglaze.  The black lines were added with an underglaze pencil on bisque, and the dots added with underglaze.  The commercial colored glazes have a tendancy to run where they meet with the clear glaze. 

Flying Rabbit! and a White Glaze

a floating plate, with flying rabbits! altho a bit blurry,  ca. 1996? (Heorot Pottery, aka me)

I came upon this out there in cyberspace, and since I was thinking of a white glaze, decided to add it to this post so that it won't be photo-less,

So, the white glaze that is the best I've ever used is from Rusty Kurenda, of Saskatoon, Sask., who developed it and shares it freely (to nice people). She is rigorous in her testing standards, freezing it, immersing it into boiling water,...  and through all of that, it doesn't craze.  The other nice thing is that it doesn't have zinc in it, so the colors of the glaze stain decoration don't burn out or go a weird brown.

Prairie Pottery Satin White, Cone 6 Ox
50 Feldspar
6 Flint
19 Whiting
7 Frit 3134
16 Kaolin
12 Superpax

2 Rutile, (to take it a bit off-white)

Glaze testing

Spent the afternoon at the clay spot studio. It was quite a productive session. Several pieces had been bisque fired, and so I tried to glaze them somehow. Because the glazes are new to me I tried to keep a record of what I was doing but this soon became pretty hit and miss. Lisa has a nice reference set of tiles that are very helpful and so I hope that a couple of the pieces will turn out okay. I haven't done much with double dipping pieces before so I tried that on a few things-- note to self-- be sure to let them dry thoroughly before yanking so as not to disturb the glaze.
Then I tried some glaze trailing with one of those bulb things you squeeze that has different size ends. This was pretty messy. It has potential but I would have to practice a lot to avoid runs and gain some sort off control over where it goes.
Lisa gave me a bit of gerstley borate and so I mixed it half and half with the glaze stains I got in Asheville. I did some brushwork with it and also tried some banding on the wheel with it in the squeeze bulb thing and it worked okay.
I did some dots with dark blue and dark green glaze on lighter colored glazes. By that time I was getting a bit confused.
I did a few more glazy things and then realized I had come to the end. I washed the glaze off from one of the bowls since it was definitely ugly.
After all of that I was in need of a bit of fun. So I got a new bag of clay-- a different kind from before. It is called Loafer's glory or some such thing and it is a mid fire combo of porcelain and stoneware.
I loved it! It was creamy and smooth (except for a few bits of sponge it had picked up from the table when I was wedging it). I threw some cylinders to use for mugs. They have thin bottoms so that I won't need to trim them very much. They are sort of mel's shape, since I think that over time it is the mug shape that I like best. Also Richard likes that wide based shape for stability.
For the next glazing session I would like to work in some of the celadon glaze in combination with the satin white and maybe some blue accents.
I don't mind a bit of glazing but so far I think that I like using the undergazes better on the leather hard stage. I don't like handling the bisque as much. Also, I really like carving into the clay, whether through slip or not.
Also it might be interesting to try the shellac resist where you wipe away clay, but use something like polymer paint medium or wax.
So many things to try in order to find a combination that works that is fun to do and is aesthetically appealing.

Glazes from the Clay Spot

Glazes from the Clay spot: