Tuesday 23 December 2014

Test, test and test again                                                                                                             
Sometimes I think painters have it easy. They can mix the colours on a palette, test them on the edge of the paper and immediately know what they look like. I know, I'm (slightly) oversimplifying. For us, testing means starting from the raw ingredients, recipes and good set of scales, sieve and a dust mask. First set of tests are done on small tiles or bits of broken bisque fired shards and selected glazes are then tested on larger surfaces.
This is kind of tertiary testing.... I have sprayed Dry Plum glaze and Copper slip on some triangles and brushed or dipped the Crawl glaze on top. 

Brushed:


Dipped:


Diluted with more water and dipped:


I didn't like the combination of green and dirty pink, so decided to go with pink only. Another test firing.... We are getting closer now.... This one has got only a hint of pink on the ridge ( I have sprayed the Dry Plum glaze, and dipped Crawl):

Here I have brushed the Dry Plum glaze, and dipped Crawl:

And we have a winner.....
Just as well I like it, as I have glazed the full kiln load with the assumption that I would.

On the down side, about half of the bigger triangles in the kiln have cracked in the glaze firing. No idea why...

1 comment:

  1. So much work, so worth it. Loving the winning blazes as well as all the detailed explanations.

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