My oxidation glaze tests have been redone, and all seem to have worked, except the ones with iron, for some reason which are again clear and crackled. The reduction tests of the second celadon glaze have also worked, with some reservations.
Oxidation - Blues, Greens and Purples
I had been trying to reproduce the colours in my sketchbook. I have a good pale blue. I have a purple that is promising, and that I can try to opacify and scale up. I have not managed to make a good green, all my greens have too much yellow in them and not enough blue. I have been using copper, with increasing amounts, using a reliable Greg Daly recipe, but the colour is not right.
I have made a great oxide wash which is exactly the colour that I am looking for. Cath Criscenti has a book with what looks like a good match, that I could try. I asked Rob, he said that I should be able to make it by adding cobalt to copper. I have decided to do a couple of line blends using the base glaze.
Reduction - Celadon 1 and 2
I have glazed three porcelain pots in my first blue celadon glaze. They are in reduction this weekend, and should be out tomorrow morning, so fingers crossed they will work well. I checked the specific gravity, and then did one coat using dipping tongs, as per the small porcelain test pot.
I tried the second green celadon glaze on a flat stoneware test that had been coated in porcelain slip. This was not ideal, but my porcelain test tiles were very fragile, and will not stand up. The celadon colour however seems to have worked.
I tried oxide washes under the celadon, one of them has caused the glaze to crawl which I like. I need to look back to see which oxide mix has caused this. The colour of the crawled effect is a dark blue.
I had planned to try a crazed effect, a lava effect and a ceramic ink crawl effect, with these glazes to add some 'weathering', but maybe this wash might do the job. So many things to do.
I have also made more porcelain test tiles, so am waiting for them to be bisque fired. These can be used for further green celadon tests, and weathering effects.
Inglaze
My inglaze lines have arrived. I have added them to a test pot and hopefully should see the results early next week. It was quite difficult to apply the lines as they are quite thin and I needed to be very precise. The first line went well, but there is a tiny gap where the join is. The second line went on well, but when I went over it with the rubber kidney it broke, so I had to remove it. I could not reuse the broken bits as without the backing I did not know which was the right side. I might just try it anyway on an old piece and see what happens. The third line crossed the other two. It was very fiddly, Rob said that I might have to butt them up together rather than overlap them. He might be right. I will see next week. It was not really a job for Friday afternoon, as I was in a rush to get them into the kiln.
I am wondering whether the lines are too precise and neat. Perhaps I need to just wind the strips around and cross them more randomly. Maybe I need to be less precise in general.
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