As previously mentioned, summer is my most trickiest month to get coloured glazes for. It’s not just trying to get the right glaze, its trying to figure out what colours I want to represent that season. In a previous post I posted back in January, I said that I would try to make my summer colours the colours of sunsets however this still does not feel right to me. It is obvious to me now that the best time to choose the colours for the season is when I’m in that season, so as it is now summer I am again looking around for inspiration. Everywhere I go at the moment the things that is standing out to me are meadow flowers. The council (most councils) seems to have planted wildflower seeds in various different parts of the town, in playing fields, along embankments, on the central reservation on roundabouts. The different colours of flowers intermingled within the grass are of bright purples, bright yellows, mauve, reds ect. This combination of bright rich colours is going to be my starting point to my summer colours.

 

To get these bright colours of purples, pinks, yellows And oranges I can only use stains in my number 16 glaze here are a selection of test tiles that I tried.

The glazed are not as nice as my other seasons but I thought to play around with different glaze applications to create more interest.

There are some qualities this I like with these glazes, I like the blends of the purple and yellow, I like the contrast of the colours. It is bright contrasting colours of summer that I was trying to achieve. However I am still unhappy with the summer pots.

I also tried to get bright with my number 2 glaze but as you can see from the picture below I was unable to even with adding the same % as I did with number 16 glaze. This base glaze is only good for pale colours.

Grouping all 4 seasons together

For the first time (admittedly I should have done this earlier) I gathered all my work and grouped the four seasons together. I did this to not only see how the pots work together but to also see what work I still need to do for my final assessment.

There are a lot!

The above image shows all the pots on the table but as there are a lot it was hard to get a proper look at the 4 seasons together.

Here is a small selection of my work to analyse.

The season that doesn’t work together in the group are my summer pots!!! They look artificial amongst the other glazes mainly due to using stains not oxides!!

Yet again I’m rethinking my summer colours. Instead of concentrating on bright colours I need to bring into the group seaside colours, blues, turquoise,sandy colours. With only 2 weeks until hand in I’m cutting it very fine!!!!

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Following in from the above I have decided to try completely different glaze recipes and not just stick to my number 16 and number 2 base glaze. I want to get a turquoise colour, sea blues, bright pinks, oranges. These are the test tiles of the new glazes.

The above are still my number 16 glaze, here I wanted more blues/ turquoise colours. 16-45 and 16-46 colour be good and I’ll try them on done cups to see how they turn out.

The above glazes are all individual glaze recipes. Top left has turned out great, a nice bright gloss black this I will definitely try for my winter range. Top right should have been a bright line green, it didn’t work! Bottom left is s mottled blue/white. I can’t see it being any good for my seasons. Bottom right I am very happy with it’s I lovely mottled turquoise colour. I will definitely use this for my summer range!

I also did these blend tiles to see how the group would work together. There are definitely bright summer colours here. I need to mix up the bright pink and turquoise glaze to see how they work together!