#glaze test

So this is a mildly fraught question because that Woodsman is made from a black clay (aka a clay body heavily pigmented with iron oxide), which can react SUPER weirdly to glazes. What I'm saying is that it's been an Adventure figuring out what glazes to use on this clay & I've definitely had some disappointing results...

...but THIS GUY?? Not one of them!

The glaze I used is called Blue Cornflower by Coyote from their Enduro-Colour line & it totally sings on the black clay. Here's another sculpture I used it on (a very fun commission for a Manta Ray rolling tray, a.k.a. the Manta Tray):

Dreamy, eh?!

I'm also super jazzed because a bunch of my new Spectrum glazes look rad on the black clay -- here are a few of my favs:

And finally (how do these get so long? It's certainly not my fault!), one of my fav unexpected successes is putting Amaco's Potter's Choice Seaweed on black clay. What's usually a lovely deep, sargasso-sea green becomes...agèd-looking, slightly shiny bronze?! Because pottery is magic & also alchemy?!*

Best way to test glazes

Mayco normally recommends 2 layers of each layered glaze (which is bonkers bc I was always taught max 3 layers)

This way on the inside where it's 2:2 it'll catch it when it drips and on the back you can see what it's like if it's 2:1 (tbh I'm liking the 2:1 combos better)

Tin-chrome Pink Stoneware Glaze

I actually made this glaze ages ago, but I messed it up at the time. We were really short on tin oxide, but I thought I had got lucky and found some in the cupboard and only realised afterwards that I’d used zinc oxide instead of tin. Zinc and tin have very different effects in a glaze.

In the last photo you can see how it looked when I first made it - clear and slightly green from the chrome. I don’t think a single person ever used it for anything, which is unsurprising because it’s blah.

But, from doing the tests with tin-chrome for earthenware and reading the book that recipe came from about colour in glazes, I learnt how chrome and tin react.

By adding the tin I was supposed to add originally, I was about to completely transform a blah glaze into an awesome one.

I’m glad I tested on a small bowl too, because it looks even better on the bowl than on the test ring. The bowl is my reclaimed mix of PB103 and BRT.

They were fired to 1280°C which is approximately cone 9. I did a post about the firing profile we use for stoneware.

The Recipe

45   Potash Feldspar 20   Silica 20   Whiting 10   Kaolin 5     Zinc Oxide 5     Tin Oxide 0.5  +Chrome Oxide

Oh! I didn't think people would want them (they're a bit rough & wobbly as I gave myself max 10mins to make each one), but I can definitely consider sticking some in my next update.

I am, however, going to keep some for reference for future projects, so I won't be able to sell all of them (at least not right away, as some of these glazes are brand new to me & it'll be good to have little samplers hanging around while I plan future rounds of glazing!).

Also, since you gave me an excuse, here are a few more shots of the test bowls, feat. one with an absolutely gorgeous finger-on-phone-screen-scrawled glaze/clay-type label from a batch of annotated photos I sent to a pottery pal :)

But

A) Mayco performs better at higher temps. Just my experience here but Amaco potter's choice glazes will NEVER look the same color as the label if you fire to Cone 6. They lose vibrancy and color right away. The studio that I go to fires at a high Cone 6, so there's minimal color left and often bubbling issues. Mayco on the other hand has always held its color well.

B) Price. If I want to mess around with glaze combos, I'm buying the $14 jar. Of course there's a range of prices but overall? Mayco is consistently more affordable.

C) Crystal (Frit) glazes. I love Mayco's lines of Frit glazes! They're lovely and fun and makes layering and glaze combos unique and fun.

D) Mayco has more glazes with satin or matte finishes that are LOVELY, especially as I move away from gloss glazes more and more.

Ok so top portion in classic glaze review style:

The bright white and blue at the top is Mayco SW-136, Weathered blue! It's very matte and kind of rough to the touch a bit? A super neat texture, the colors are vibrant as you can see. And you can see on the outside of the bowl too that you can see the underglaze lines under it. However, on the test tile, the carved line is barely visible at all.

To the right is Coyote Lapis Satin Matte MBG 182! Genuinely gorgeous as most coyote glazes are. The finish is fantastic. This is one of Coyote's Enduro-glazes which is designed for restaurant style heavy use food items so it seems to live up to that! Really love the vibrancy on this.

Then we have Mayco SW-145 Tea Dust! It has a very nice leathery look and color! It's a semi matte appearance, it seems like a web work of matte with glass specks giving it that leather look. Very nice!

MBG 180-P, another coyote Enduro-glaze! This is their Honeydew color. I wasn't expecting so much flow and variation in an Enduro-glaze but it's there! It's nice and subtle and a very refreshing color.

MBG 182-P, Coyote Enduro-glaze number three! This is Satin White Liner. It's not quite matte, not quite gloss, and very nice! The underglaze and stripe of Mayco Matte Black under it show well!

SW-105, Mayco Frost blue! This is a more subtle gray-ish blue with a soft tan color in some places. It showed the Mayco Matte Black under it well, but ate the black underglaze on the outside test. It's a nice color and supposedly has some good glaze combos!

Here's my first test batch of celadons over sgraffito slips! Overall I'm happy with the result, but also glad I took notes so I can keep tweaking the process.

Here are some closeups - I'm much happier with the one-coat darker glazes (the lighter ones in these duos - left-hand glaze is Coyote Root Beer, right is Coyote Rainy Day):

And Coyote Aqua wins for best contrast (top left is over cobalt slip/brown speckle clay, top right over black slip/white clay):

& some sunbeam photos showing the subtle beauty of the less contrast-y ones: