Following on from my last post, I made up 1k of each of the glazes that I did a test on so that I could glaze some autumnal pots. I decided to repeat the glazing I did on the little pots onto my larger pots with having 1 glaze in side each of the four pots then rotated the pots to the next glaze and dipped the pot on the out side and so on.

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I then glazed some smaller pots but this time I covered each pot with one glaze then dipped the rim in another glaze. I used the test pots that I previously made as a guide to see which glazes work best together.

The results:-

Now they are out of the kiln I’m wondering why did I glaze them the way I did??? All I have achieved is having 4 very large test pots! They have not worked as well as I had hoped. I have also noticed a difference in the glaze from the new batch that I made as they are not exactly the same as my test tiles. This unfortunately could be for 2 reasons, the tests pots were made with toasted clay which has a higher iron content where as these pots were made with B17C and ES20 clay, both clays are quite a lot lighter in colour with not a lot of iron in it. The second reason could be that the 2 tests were fired in different kilns. The first test were fired in Dave’s kiln at a very high temperature (the glaze needs to be fired at 1280°C) and it could have been fired higher. There is also a possibility that when I initially mixed the small 100g batch it might not have been exact as to when the larger quantity was mixed. One way to re test this new mixed glaze will be to test them on toasted clay.

There are still some positives that I can take from these tests are that they do have some lovely qualities especially where the two glazes blend.

Close up of the sections of glaze blends that I like.

These are the results of the smaller pots that I glazed.

The one definitive result I can say from these pots are that the glaze mix jjj is not to be used on its own. It has turned out to be a horrible peachy colour, completely different from the first test pots. The two end pots on the above image are the same glaze, one glazed every where with the other glaze (ddd) on the rim. This jjj glaze can only be used in small quantities on top of other glazes.

 

As well as glazing the above pots I also tried to glaze some of my autumnal thrown ensembled wall hangings. I had been avoiding glazing these as I simply didn’t know how best to do so. I am not keen on spraying as you need a lot of glaze due to over spray and due to me wanting to use different glazes on the same pot it would be a very long process of having to clean the gun out after every use. But one of the main problems would be trying to spray into each of the individual thrown pieces.

A glazing technique that I like to do is to simply dip the pot into a vat of glaze. However with the size and shapes of these wall pieces I would need a vast quantity of glaze and as I am still experimenting with the colours this is not an option. The only other alternative was for me to paint the glaze on, a technique that should be ok for autumn as a messily applied glaze would suit the look I am after.

This was glazed using iii (green) inside, rimmed with ddd (brown) then adding jjj to get the glazes to bleed.

This wall hanging was glazed with ddd (brown) inside and out with eee filling in the gaps and then with jjj (peach) around the rim to get the bleeding effect.

Below are the results.

The next wall hanging was made in sections to be placed in pieces. Below are the various layouts that it could be placed in.

 

I will need to place these on a board to show how it could look in situation.

I like the overall finish of the above piece however I’m not sure that it completely says that it represents Autumn colours. I think it needs more orange. If it was to be place amongst the other seasons then perhaps it would.

The fact that it was glazed using a brush seems to have worked, the glazes have blended into each other and not left any brush marks which could have been a possibility.

Regarding the issues I’ve got with glazing I am going to change how I make these pieces. I will make them in smaller sections enabling me to glaze them by dipping using a shallow container. I will also make them and design them to be in there final composition. the above piece was made in one large section with a couple of smaller sections then with single pieces, but I never made it as one composition so I have found it difficult to arrange it in a way that I like.