I have decided that I need to keep a Google Drive record of my glaze and slips research, so I have a backup in case I lose my glaze book, and so that I can access a recipe anywhere. I have started out with a spreadsheet. I am not sure that it is the best way to do this, as I would really like to organise the glazes using a coloured image, rather than a colour name. However it allows me to sort using various data fields, such as firing temperature or atmosphere. It is simple, accessible and organised. I have started the process of transferring the recipes, and the images from my phone.
Looking through my handwritten glaze book I have some quandries.
Firstly, my glaze book contains glazes I have found during my research or reading that I like, and would like to try. Glazes that I have not yet tested, perhaps because they do not fit my current project, although I might want to use them in the future. See Marillee's Lava glaze from Glazy below, do I record it electronically or not? I think that I will not transfer it to my online glaze record until I have tried it.
Secondly, there are some glazes that I have tried that have failed to produce the results expected, based on pictures available in books or on Glazy. For example, Greg Daly's CU-11 glaze from Developing Glazes (2013) appeared to be a light shiny blue, but my test tile was a matt primary blue colour. Do I record the failed recipe so that in the future I can avoid it or try to fix it? Or do I only keep electronic records of successful tests? I have decided to leave out the glazes that I do not like, they are in the manual record, and if I fix them I can transfer them.
Thirdly, I have combined some successful glazes to see what effects they produce when combined. Should these be recorded anywhere electronically? I have concluded that I have these as a physical record and an image, so am not going to record them in my online glaze record.
The handwritten book is very much a working record of my research, an attempt to pull together the recipes from books, or stored on Glazy or Pinterest that I want to try for my current work. I am going to keep the online record to look to the future, as a database of successful glazes I am going to use on my MA, and hopefully when I have set up my home studio.
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