Glaze Results, Reflections
From left to right: Painted-on, painted-on & sprayed w/ ash, sprayed on, sprayed-on & sprayed w/ ash.
These aren’t really the colors I wanted, but the 3rd one looks nice on the cat the way it formed on its face. I realize the tan/reddish color from the recipe’s pictures probably came from the clay’s surface, not the glaze itself. It’s weird how very different each one of these turned out.
The glaze also has a bit of a speckled surface, which might be from the glaze itself but also some sort of magic from it being reduction fired.
I want to find a glaze/firing that can replicate these beads I saw at the Maritime Museum—though I don’t have much of a use for this kind of color at the moment, I’d like to find an excuse to, because I really enjoy the glossy, glittery pastel mix of colors here. The point of the birdhouse project is to be appealing to a bird itself, not so much a person, but there’s nothing really stopping me from making one with pinks & glitter.
When I was making this glaze, I had to grind down terracotta clay. I don’t know if it would ruin the plaster, but I realize I might be able to pour a birdhouse with dark clay and use this glaze again and hope for the best.
So I’ll make another collection of glazes here I’d like to use, and I’ll spend a day in the studio just mixing glazes so I don’t have to wait a long time for one thing to be fired only for me to not want to use it. And these ones I’ve made sure they’re fired on white clay.
As a concrete final collection of birdhouses, I’d like to make 1 + 4 season-themed houses. Really, the kind of bird who uses it only nests spring-summer time, but the idea is that a person can customize it to their tastes as well while still being “natural” looking.
Raspberry - Just a very beautiful glaze I’d like to make as a base for a glittery birdhouse, with the decors being similar to the beads. Not season related.
Derek’s Kaki - I’ll make this one last, I think there’s an in-house glaze I could add wood ash to instead with a similarish result so I can save time making it. For fall.
Earl Gray - A very pretty muted matte pink, meant for spring.
I’ll use an in-house matte white for winter—no sense making one myself if I know that’s what I want.
For summer, I want to use the color blue (this one looks nice) to emulate with what I associate with the season, beaches. There’s a few reasons I’m just going to buy a premixed glaze—cobalt is expensive and blues have been perfected in the glaze market.
I don’t have time nor a really good reason to mix glazes for decor, so I’m going to use mostly underglazes and in house glazes for those, which the exception of the ruby colored one if I have time—I have to do that one last since it doesn’t tie in with the seasons.
