![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Glaze kiln opening yesterday was super interesting. I'll talk about it a bit here.
(My headache is gone, I sat in a dark room with my head at a weird angle, something in my neck popped like 12 times in ten minutes, and now I feel ok, if a little dizzy? I wonder if the scent reaction that tightens my shoulder muscles pulled something way out of alignment)
Anyhow. I made several glazes in the turquoise family and tested them, and a couple others, and I tested some studio combinations. Studio ones first:
1. Oldforge floating rutile (glazy 236647) with 90% water overlapped with Opal Blue (glazy 83769) worked shockingly well. The overlap was a baby blue, somewhat textured but not a ton. The floating rutile is a very smooth, even glaze that doesn't break, which always surprises me, and opal blue is one of my favourites. This might be good for my brother's "I like primary colours" wedding stuff?
2. Opal Blue with cedar hill white (glazy 10972) overtop on a plate did some amazing strong texturing and cell patterning. Not sure how it would do on a more vertical surface but I'll do some tests.
3. Bailey's red 2 (glazy 9094) with Blue Opal or Cedar Hill White both work well: with the blue opal it makes a great desert brown, with cedar hill white it makes a good medium brown with texture. With blue opal I get some "and the dry stone no sound of water" resonance for the Waste Land set.
4. AMACO seaweed under Cedar Hill White crawls some and does beautiful waterfall stream effects, it's amazing on carved rocklike surfaces. "Water, and also rock" feel. Sorta PNW during a rain type stream-looking stuff.
Now my own homemade ones:
1. New hagi (glazy 386209) is about 20% ash which I sifted from the birch ash buckets I have been keeping the last few years with a kitchen flour sifter. I'd put it over the copper oxide wash (glazy 132073) in a couple places, and always over a red or dark clay body. It's listed as a satin finish but I think mine was sshinier, though a little textured. It's a gorgeous primitive surface when thin, translucent to transparent, and with two dips it thickens into an easily-breaking titanium pale blue. It picked up the copper wash and went semitranslucent with green in those spots, though it didn't show the carvings the wash was put over as well as I hoped. This is also a good go-to for rock-style carvings and I want to play with painting on washes under it. Also want to try more ash glazes! They have a really warm, organic surface with yellow-amber rivulets and specks.
2. Oldforge floating copper (glazy 150981) is the first of the turquoises. Very transparent at the 90% water I added with hallucinatory near-glowing clouds of blue suspended in the near-clear shine. With less water I suspect it would be a little more opaque, but as it stands it's perfect for my swirled clay because it shows the clay through so well. 1% copper was nearly glow-in-the-dark pastel blue, 3% copper was a bluer and slightly less translucent colour. I want to stick with the 1%, or maybe 1.5%. I need to make a bucket of this and experiment with double-dipping when I want it more opaque. Thin it would be amazing for the whole "of thunder of spring over distant mountains/We who were living are now dying with a little patience" and "If there were the sound of water only".
3. Chun celadon with Minspar (glazy 114001) is... as advertised, and like it's pictured on the tin. Chun and celadon glazes are very transparent and this one is too, with the celadon green from copper. Where it's thick, especially at the bottom where it runs a little into a thicker skirt, it tends towards blue. It covers red clay surprisingly well given that over white clay it looks so watery-transparent. It'll take some skill to learn to use this -- it shows every bit of unevenness of application -- but of all these it gives off the most sense of living pools of water, more warm-climate than glacial. Almost those brilliant coloured algae ponds you see cradled in mud, but also kind of that Caribbean brilliantly clear water? Anyhow I'm surprised by it, it looks exactly like the picture, and I'll need to develop my relationship with it through use.
4. Val's turquoise 3134 (glazy 7245) is an iteration on some of the various very famous turquoise recipes by Val Cushing, but brought up to use modern, available materials mostly. If the floating copper was patches of transparent and opaque, the chun celadon was transparent, this one is deeply creamy and opaque with a glossy surface. It covered all but the most intense texture, it ran some like melting ice cream, and it was a pretty uniform colour without the phase separation that even the test tile on glazy website showed. There were perhaps very subtle orange streaks? It didn't reveal application issues, just sheeted into a smooth turquoise surface. Very interested to see how it layers, as-is it has the danger of being boring. Reminder to self to keep the application thin around the bottom, it wants to drip.
5. Oldforge floating iron (glazy 238642) is the same base as the floating copper but with 10% iron instead of 1-3% copper. I was shocked by this one. Over a red reclaim it came out deep midnight almost-murky blue with red breaking and a fair bit of subtle movement, like my AMACO iron lustre but nicer. This is probably a good default glaze, which is something I never thought I would say. This is also "the shadow under this red rock" without question, both visually and because it's MADE OUT OF IRON.
Where to go from here?
I've been developing a strong emotional relationship with red iron oxide. It's an incredibly vivid, intense material to work with, it stains anything, it's reminiscent of blood and beginnings, and it's the oldest pigment known to be used by people. I didn't realize it would go blue, and as a general rule I don't like yellows and oranges, so I'd kind of tabled it for use in my mind. But. I wonder if I can mix it with some wood ash glazes and maybe a little titanium and get a dark blue breaking rust very heterogenous surface?
More ash glazes. This one turned out surprisingly well but it's only 20% ash. What if I used more ash? A soda feldspar instead of a potassium one? What if I sprinkle sifted ash over another glaze? What if I underpaint with washes?
Application skill. I don't know if just making big buckets of this is all I need, or more. I've been practicing even application but with a small amount it's pretty challenging. Practice a smooth depthy surface for the chun celadon. Can I get a tide pool effect? What about carving details on white clay under it?
More oldforge floating glazes. Magnesium? Cobalt? I know the chrome is nice. What about blends? What about transplanting his cobalt/magnesium from his floating blue into the floating base? What about his strontium glosses? Milk oolong pottery has done a nice series of colours with this, I'll likely riff on them.
Layer with Val's turquoise. It wants to layer.
Bigger buckets of all of the above, maybe with the exception of the celadon chun for now. Need to get some good buckets, a friend from the garden club has a lead on them.
Start paying for glazy.org and use the target and replace function to look into the blue beech (191908) ash glaze, do some colour testing on some other ash glazes and on a ravenscrag and titanium base, look into a tea dust effect ideally without lithium, look into a reflective surface like cammi's infinitely reflective, and maybe look into the selsor chun base.
Find a couple cover glazes, try lynette's opal with 3134 (82212) and see if I can find something like sweetwater warm or alabama rain but with ingredients I have and can get.
Try dipping rims in water or wash and see what happens.
Edited to add: it might be time to print out the poem and start assigning glazes/clay bodies/techniques/textures to the different lines. I think I'll need to source erbium oxide for the hyacinth garden, and maybe use glazy 154831 for the "I could not speak/and my eyes failed" part of that, and I don't think I'll be able to remember those if this takes years. Maybe a spreadsheet actually so I don't lose the paper?
(My headache is gone, I sat in a dark room with my head at a weird angle, something in my neck popped like 12 times in ten minutes, and now I feel ok, if a little dizzy? I wonder if the scent reaction that tightens my shoulder muscles pulled something way out of alignment)
Anyhow. I made several glazes in the turquoise family and tested them, and a couple others, and I tested some studio combinations. Studio ones first:
1. Oldforge floating rutile (glazy 236647) with 90% water overlapped with Opal Blue (glazy 83769) worked shockingly well. The overlap was a baby blue, somewhat textured but not a ton. The floating rutile is a very smooth, even glaze that doesn't break, which always surprises me, and opal blue is one of my favourites. This might be good for my brother's "I like primary colours" wedding stuff?
2. Opal Blue with cedar hill white (glazy 10972) overtop on a plate did some amazing strong texturing and cell patterning. Not sure how it would do on a more vertical surface but I'll do some tests.
3. Bailey's red 2 (glazy 9094) with Blue Opal or Cedar Hill White both work well: with the blue opal it makes a great desert brown, with cedar hill white it makes a good medium brown with texture. With blue opal I get some "and the dry stone no sound of water" resonance for the Waste Land set.
4. AMACO seaweed under Cedar Hill White crawls some and does beautiful waterfall stream effects, it's amazing on carved rocklike surfaces. "Water, and also rock" feel. Sorta PNW during a rain type stream-looking stuff.
Now my own homemade ones:
1. New hagi (glazy 386209) is about 20% ash which I sifted from the birch ash buckets I have been keeping the last few years with a kitchen flour sifter. I'd put it over the copper oxide wash (glazy 132073) in a couple places, and always over a red or dark clay body. It's listed as a satin finish but I think mine was sshinier, though a little textured. It's a gorgeous primitive surface when thin, translucent to transparent, and with two dips it thickens into an easily-breaking titanium pale blue. It picked up the copper wash and went semitranslucent with green in those spots, though it didn't show the carvings the wash was put over as well as I hoped. This is also a good go-to for rock-style carvings and I want to play with painting on washes under it. Also want to try more ash glazes! They have a really warm, organic surface with yellow-amber rivulets and specks.
2. Oldforge floating copper (glazy 150981) is the first of the turquoises. Very transparent at the 90% water I added with hallucinatory near-glowing clouds of blue suspended in the near-clear shine. With less water I suspect it would be a little more opaque, but as it stands it's perfect for my swirled clay because it shows the clay through so well. 1% copper was nearly glow-in-the-dark pastel blue, 3% copper was a bluer and slightly less translucent colour. I want to stick with the 1%, or maybe 1.5%. I need to make a bucket of this and experiment with double-dipping when I want it more opaque. Thin it would be amazing for the whole "of thunder of spring over distant mountains/We who were living are now dying with a little patience" and "If there were the sound of water only".
3. Chun celadon with Minspar (glazy 114001) is... as advertised, and like it's pictured on the tin. Chun and celadon glazes are very transparent and this one is too, with the celadon green from copper. Where it's thick, especially at the bottom where it runs a little into a thicker skirt, it tends towards blue. It covers red clay surprisingly well given that over white clay it looks so watery-transparent. It'll take some skill to learn to use this -- it shows every bit of unevenness of application -- but of all these it gives off the most sense of living pools of water, more warm-climate than glacial. Almost those brilliant coloured algae ponds you see cradled in mud, but also kind of that Caribbean brilliantly clear water? Anyhow I'm surprised by it, it looks exactly like the picture, and I'll need to develop my relationship with it through use.
4. Val's turquoise 3134 (glazy 7245) is an iteration on some of the various very famous turquoise recipes by Val Cushing, but brought up to use modern, available materials mostly. If the floating copper was patches of transparent and opaque, the chun celadon was transparent, this one is deeply creamy and opaque with a glossy surface. It covered all but the most intense texture, it ran some like melting ice cream, and it was a pretty uniform colour without the phase separation that even the test tile on glazy website showed. There were perhaps very subtle orange streaks? It didn't reveal application issues, just sheeted into a smooth turquoise surface. Very interested to see how it layers, as-is it has the danger of being boring. Reminder to self to keep the application thin around the bottom, it wants to drip.
5. Oldforge floating iron (glazy 238642) is the same base as the floating copper but with 10% iron instead of 1-3% copper. I was shocked by this one. Over a red reclaim it came out deep midnight almost-murky blue with red breaking and a fair bit of subtle movement, like my AMACO iron lustre but nicer. This is probably a good default glaze, which is something I never thought I would say. This is also "the shadow under this red rock" without question, both visually and because it's MADE OUT OF IRON.
Where to go from here?
I've been developing a strong emotional relationship with red iron oxide. It's an incredibly vivid, intense material to work with, it stains anything, it's reminiscent of blood and beginnings, and it's the oldest pigment known to be used by people. I didn't realize it would go blue, and as a general rule I don't like yellows and oranges, so I'd kind of tabled it for use in my mind. But. I wonder if I can mix it with some wood ash glazes and maybe a little titanium and get a dark blue breaking rust very heterogenous surface?
More ash glazes. This one turned out surprisingly well but it's only 20% ash. What if I used more ash? A soda feldspar instead of a potassium one? What if I sprinkle sifted ash over another glaze? What if I underpaint with washes?
Application skill. I don't know if just making big buckets of this is all I need, or more. I've been practicing even application but with a small amount it's pretty challenging. Practice a smooth depthy surface for the chun celadon. Can I get a tide pool effect? What about carving details on white clay under it?
More oldforge floating glazes. Magnesium? Cobalt? I know the chrome is nice. What about blends? What about transplanting his cobalt/magnesium from his floating blue into the floating base? What about his strontium glosses? Milk oolong pottery has done a nice series of colours with this, I'll likely riff on them.
Layer with Val's turquoise. It wants to layer.
Bigger buckets of all of the above, maybe with the exception of the celadon chun for now. Need to get some good buckets, a friend from the garden club has a lead on them.
Start paying for glazy.org and use the target and replace function to look into the blue beech (191908) ash glaze, do some colour testing on some other ash glazes and on a ravenscrag and titanium base, look into a tea dust effect ideally without lithium, look into a reflective surface like cammi's infinitely reflective, and maybe look into the selsor chun base.
Find a couple cover glazes, try lynette's opal with 3134 (82212) and see if I can find something like sweetwater warm or alabama rain but with ingredients I have and can get.
Try dipping rims in water or wash and see what happens.
Edited to add: it might be time to print out the poem and start assigning glazes/clay bodies/techniques/textures to the different lines. I think I'll need to source erbium oxide for the hyacinth garden, and maybe use glazy 154831 for the "I could not speak/and my eyes failed" part of that, and I don't think I'll be able to remember those if this takes years. Maybe a spreadsheet actually so I don't lose the paper?
