Tonight was glazing night at my ceramics class. The teacher is very hands off so we rely on communal knowledge, especially when it comes to the glazes. Bunch of buckets with more or less obscure descriptions written on them. Some with test tile attached, some without. So the glazing tends to sound like:
"What's in that bucket?" "It's the foxy glaze." "Used it before? Did you like it?" "Yeah, it always turns out."
"What's in your bucket?" "It's blue." "What sort of blue?" "Idk, it just says 'blue-blue' on the bucket."
"What's that?" "It's that yellow that usually turns a lovely chocolate brown." "Oh, does it ever turn out yellow?" "Not that I can remember."
So yeah. It's mostly trial and error. And the glaze I used for my mushrooms is now called 'the mushroom glaze'. I don't know if it's meant as endorsement or as a deterrent. I saw some people use it though, so will be interesting to see how their stuff turns out.
Anyway... I glazed my bust and a leaf plate. The leaf plate got the 'foxy glaze' which is a kind of speckled rusty red. Apparently a pretty safe bet. I couldn't decide what to use for my bust, so in the end I went with the bucket that had the most in, for easy dipping. So it ended up glazed in speckled white. We'll see how it turns out.