Well, it happened - I finally glazed some pots. And, well, there were some good things and some bad. I'll start with the good: we were having some trouble with the Deb's Clear blistering, but that didn't seem to happen with this round of work (yea!). I applied the glaze considerably thinner than we had before, so I'm thinking application may have been the culprit. Secondly, the Deb's with copper (6%) and Iron (3%) gave a lovely warm green that I used on the the tractor bowl. I think that glaze is definitely a keeper. I also really like the Amber (which is the G-76 Amber) and will continue to use that glaze as well...
Now onto the not so great results. First off, and I should have tested these ages ago, the underglazes were far more vibrant and flat than I had anticipated. They give the pots (the whale bowl in particular) a paint-by-number feel that I am not particularly keen on. On the other hand, now I know what to expect and I can adjust my usage of these underglazes accordingly (and maybe nix them, in fact!). I've also realized that the slip base is far too white for my taste, but I think that is easy enough to fix with the adddition of a little colorant.
On the bright side, I now have a good deal of information about how these glazes worked and what I need to change. I'm still in pursuit of a runny clear that I can add colorants to that will bleed outside of my drawings. I think I should play with inlaying some glaze into my drawings as well - it would be great if the illustrations themselves could blur and bleed a bit.
Okay, that's it for now. Given that my class is over and I don't move into my new studio space until January, my posts may be a little few and far between this month. It'll be good to get back in the studio and start on my next phase of clay research!
