Long time no see

It's been forever and a day since I last posted, I know. Everything besides my ceramics took a turn for the worst and unfortunately my timetable for this project also took a turn for the worst. I have to say that as of today i have completed all of my glazing for this semester, however, everything for the reduction kiln and a few pieces left for oxidation are still waiting to be fired. I do have a couple photos of some tiles and such and exactly 72 tiles of the quadraxial blend, not photographed as of yet, my apologies. So for this post I'll share what i have and hopefully within the next several weeks I will be able to show the complete quadraxial blend, all one hundred and forty four tiles worth.

So first thing I'd like to show you is the two cookie cutter tiles i tried the crawly white glaze on, i put waxwing brown as the base glaze then dribbled the crawly on top.

Red Tile on Left, White tile on Right
Waxwing with Crawly white on top

Well, on the red tile i didn't put it on extremely thick, on the white tile i poured it on. Of course with the thick application the white went all blistery and bubbled up like growths, but it looks cool doesn't it? (my mom excited by these tiles she wanted to use them as spoon rests! unfortunately the crawly white is toxic and not food safe...but I'm saving her some food safe tiles for spoon rests just because). Now there was talk of getting making the glaze even thicker to try and get bigger breaks from the crawling, that tile is glazed but is still sitting waiting to go in the kiln, so that result will be coming...but not right now. be patient now.

I'm hoping that when at it's thickest the glaze will break more than blister, but since i have not had the chance to experiment with it at it's thickest it remains to be seen. When i glazed this final tile the consistency of the white crawly glaze was that of pudding, so hopefully I'll get the results I'm hoping for!

The only other thing I have to show are some teaser pictures for the oxidation quadraxial....

Oxidation Quadraxial waiting on the cart

All the tiles came out pink and purple, but I'll give you a hint....none of the actual glazes came out those colours~ but the colours i got from this test were pretty awesome and a lot of the glazes are ones i would definitely consider using.

Oxidation Quadraxial in the kiln

I would like to wait until i fire the reduction kiln before i post the results of both tests since they are the same glazes and pretty much the same test but in two kilns. It would make sense to have them photographed both separately and side by side to get the full range of what happened to each glaze in the different kiln environments.I hope you'll all wait around for when i post up the quadraxial, you might have to wait a little while but i will have those tiles fired and i will have the results posted here. There is about 80 tiles, 6 cylinders, and fifteen cookie cutter tiles glazed and waiting to be fired.

That's all for now, I'll post as soon as i can with the next results~!

Cheers~

Prepare yourself....

So this post is going to be pretty long, only because I haven't been able to update in a while. I have been doing lots of tests and I have even begun my Quadraxial blend (but that will have to wait for another post, this one is long enough as is).

Where to begin...

Pagan Purple and Mottled Purple Retest

I believe the last thing i talked about was that darn Mottled Purple glaze I tested and how, with help, i was able to find a substitute for the petalite in it. Well, I tested it! and the results were pretty consistent with the original recipe. Although this test came out kinda speckly where the original puddled, the colour is exactly the same.

Mottled Purple- original tiles on left

I'm sure either recipe would be fine to use if you wanted a mottled purple. But being able to substitute an ingredient and get nearly identical results was fascinating and leaves so much more open for exploring. Mind you that will have to wait for another time since the semester is finished soon.

I also threw in a glaze called Pagan Purple, which came with two colour options...neither of which turned the glaze purple....how disappointing. The first was Copper Carbonate, which as i would have predicted, turned the glaze a greenish blue. The second colour was Nickel Oxide, i haven't used it previously so i had no prediction here, but it made the glaze brown. In an attempt to have a fun twist i made a third glaze with both colorants...it turned a pretty weird army green...interesting. I was hoping one of the tests would be purple, but no luck, maybe there was a misprint in the book i was using for the recipe...hm...

Crawly White Colour Tests- left to right
Ilmenite 10%, Ilmenite 5%, Manganese 5%, Red Copper Oxide 2%, Red Iron Oxide 5%

Next, I took the crawly white glaze i made a while back (the one i turned purple) and added a variety of different colorants I hadn't used before and red iron oxide....for fun. The results were rather interesting! The crawling wasn't that prominent, but the colour and the effects were super neat, especially the Ilmenite and the Red Copper Oxide. I would definitely use both of these glazes in the future, they're lovely. The texture of these tiles is that of a lizards skin, it's smooth but the scales from the crawling make a rough feel...not something I'd use for a cup or anything touching the mouth.

Peeling glaze

The next test deserves an intro...it has to be the most hideous, repulsive, nasty and down right awesome glaze i think I've ever created thus far. Mind you, it's a combination glaze. I took a plain version of the crawly white and dipped it over the studio licorice glaze....it didn't appreciate that. As you can see, the crawling glaze started to crawl off the tile even before it was fired. It was rather amazing to watch, and a little irritating as i had to re-dip the tile...which leads us to what happened after the firing occurred...

Crawly White over Licoric

As you can see....yeeaaaaah...it's pretty gross looking. it went all blistered and the crawly white turned a weird blue and yellow. The crawling was so bad, in fact, that parts of it peeled off and landed on the back of the tile (which you can see on the foot of the red tile). unfortunately, the licorice glaze was especially thin when i applied it, most of the frits and important bits were in a hard lump stuck in the bottom of the glaze bucket. So no matter how much i mixed and stirred it seemed i couldn't get the glaze mixed enough. I will be testing the crawly white over licorice again on one of those cookie cutter tiles i made a little while ago, as well i will be trying the crawly white over each of the studio glazes to see if how different the results will be. good times.

Jen's Juicy Fruit-Left Variation, Right Original

Nearly done. The next test I did was kinda stuck on at the last moment, but I'm glad i was able to try it. This glaze is called Jen's Juicy Fruit and when i found this glaze it had both the original recipe and a variation that used Black Iron Oxide instead of Red Iron Oxide. The difference between the two is noticeable and rather nice on both the red and the white clay. The red clay doesn't get as much of the runny rainbow effect, but makes a really nice metallic gold and copper colour (it's super pretty in person, trust me). The kiln slightly over fired on this test but it doesn't appear to have badly effected the glazes at all.

Okay. That's all. Those are all the tests since the last time i posted. Now, the next thing i need to put up is a little teaser for my upcoming quad...

Red Cups of Glazey Goodness

 All 36 glaze mixtures have been dry mixed and will be completed shortly (as soon as i can). I have 144 test tiles waiting to be dipped.
what?
yes, one hundred and forty four.
This test will be done in red and white tiles and in both the oxidation and reduction kilns.
exciting~

One Hundred and Forty Four Tiles Waiting....

Cheers~

Glaze Testing Madness

Glaze testing has been less than productive lately, my health has taken a bit of a spiral downhill and has kept me in bed. That, and prior to being bed ridden i was bogged down by so many things (i wont get into details, there was just lots). So i have many a test to complete, recipes and cups ready in wait....and i'm stuck at home. boo.

Besides all that, i have had a bit of time for some fun glaze related things and at the start of this week i got some really great news. I came home Monday afternoon, checked the mailbox and found a big fat envelope from one of the universities i applied to (and you know you don't get a big fat envelope unless you've been accepted!). YIPPI! I'll be heading off into the great blue yonder come the fall so i can get my bachelor of the Fine Arts Major in Ceramics~

Oh, right, back to glazes. Well there was this one recipe i was eager to try out but upon checking the ingredients i noticed we had very little Petalite. well, the recipe needed 40% Petalite so i went searching for an alternative. Luckily, I'm fortunate to know Gem, a fellow ceramist and someone with access to one of those glaze recipe computer programs. She showed me how to use it a bit and how to use the chemical components in each ingredient to replace the petalite with other ingredients. So now...

Mottled Purple-Original Recipe
Petalite             40
EPK Kaolin       17
Dolomite           17
Whiting               6
Silica                  10
Cobalt Oxide      10

Mottled Purple-Altered Recipe

Spodumene           21
Ferro Frit 3110        2

EPK Kaolin          19.5
Dolomite              18.2
Whiting                 5.5

Silica                   26.1
Cobalt Oxide          10

So now the recipe is balanced with all the right amount of ingredients so the petalite doesn't have to be added. But the thing is, this hasn' t been completely tested....So i'm going to test it and compare it to the tiles i have from the original test i completed. This test joins about seven others i have in the making, they'll be mixed in a few days if i can, i want the test done with so i can get back to the major task at hand, picking the recipes for the final quadraxial blend in both reduction and oxidation.

Now then, i have a few tests done and some photos to share...and oh! forgot to mention, i decided to include the cone packs with each photo from each kilned test. Just for the fun of it all. Although, the all the tests I've done lately have been dead on cone 6...

Glazes Left to Right: #19 retest, Fake Ash, VC Matt, and Speckled Gold

Glazes Left to Right: Buck Sea Green, Mottled Purple, and Cream Breaking Rust

So most of these tests were just original glazes i found through books or glaze sites, but the #19 retest is glaze number #19 from the Triaxial i did earlier. I didn't have both tiles at the time of the photograph, but the glaze looks nearly identical to the original! I'm very excited about this, even with all the modifications to the recipe to simplify it, it still came out the same.

#19 Retest

Here's a bit of a close up to it all on it's own. I think it still looks wonderful...it just needs a name now to make it look like a more official glaze..hm...

Well, that's all for now, I hope to be back to glazing as soon as i'm well. With more pictures and more stories to tell, no doubt.

Cheers~

Cookies!

Well, it's been more than crazy the last week and a bit since I last updated! After my car broke down, an emergency trip to Vancouver, my parents returning from a trip down South, and a very severe lack of sleep. I am trudging onward with my glazes, now looking into doing some different oxidation/reduction combination tests for my next big test. for now I'm doing some minor tests, finding some new glazes to try and trying to re-create one of the glaze mixtures from the triaxial. I'm hoping to do more testing of the crackle glaze I've been playing with, trying it on larger surfaces....speaking of which...

Vessel shaped tiles! oh my

I made some interesting tiles to test on, why? since the ceramics room is rather busy and full of students this semester i am unable to make any large vessels (that and I'm so busy with glazes that it would be unheard of) i decided to make my tiles in vessel shapes instead of squares, or rectangles, or circles. I have made four vase shapes in each colour clay and four pitcher shapes in each colour clay, that's a total of sixteen tiles. along with that i have thrown three cylinders in each colour to test runny glazes and more layered tests.

Hopefully I can get these dried and bisqued soon so my tests don't have to wait too long. I do have a couple tests I've put through in the large ConeArt kiln over this weekend, I should have the results out tomorrow; I have tested three new glazes and the one re-creation test.

I'll update as soon as I can with the new results! With more pictures!

Cheers~

Triaxial Triumph

You waited? 

Are you excited?
Well, i hope so because photographing this tiles was a tremendous pain in the rear! For one, I picked a shiny glaze, a matte glaze, and a crawling semi shiny glaze as my base glazes for this. So when I tried to photograph it the light would look wonderful of NEARLY all the tiles except the super shiny ones! so unfortunately the extreme awesome colours and effects on the tiles is masked by a heck of a lot of shiny glare marks....and in some cases, the beautiful colourations just wouldn't photograph for me! but i tried real hard so maybe you can imagine that the colours are ten times better in person, alright?

So for my three bases, which i mentioned, i picked a matte turquoise, the semi-shiny crawling purple i created, and an old friend from a previous project....a shiny honey brown jun glaze with opaque streaks.  I tested all 21 glazes on both red and white tiles and  they were fired to a perfect cone 6! 

My First Triaxial Blend

Beautiful ain't she? ahh....so i paired each tile with it's matching red tile friend so the difference in colour on the different clays could be seen. You can also sorta see how the shiny glaze was more dominant over the matte, only a few of the tiles came out completely matte (actually some were matte and broke shiny! very interesting...). Each point of the triangle was the original base glazes: the top is the semi-shiny crawling purple, lower left is the matte turquoise, and lower right is the honey brown jun glaze.

White Tiles Alone

Red Tiles Alone

I also separated the tiles into white and red triangles so the colour change could be better observed. You can probably see what i mean from the dramatic colour differences between the photos that the photographs didn't keep the colour true. Plus, a lot of the dark glazes on the red tiles have very subtle colours in them that i could not capture in a photo. like the two tiles at the top, right below the very top one. those two tiles have a bit of the crawling effect, but it's glazed over and not broken at the surface, the crawling pieces are a lovely metallic silver on one tile and a metallic gold tint on the other. it looks like sparkles hidden under a clear glaze, very beautiful in person.

Some of my favourite results

I tried a photo of some of my favourite mixes, which turned out...alright, but still lacks all the lovely little details that make them my favourites. Such as the very middle glaze in that photo, the one that looks very blue, in person that glaze has lovely opaque streaks that are light blue but break pink at the end! the streaks make the glaze look fluid, but there was little movement from any of these glazes.

Oh happy day. I will probably have more to say on this, and possible more photos later on, but for now I'll have to end this.
Hope you're enjoying my glazes :)
Cheers~

Turquoise Testing

So Busy! I thought reading week would be a nice break but it's been just as busy as a regular week of school, minus the scheduled class hours. I'm a little lagged in terms of what experiments I'm posting, but I'll be adding more posts over this week.

So the test I'll be showing you  is the turquoise glaze i wanted to use for my Triaxial. In the experiment the glaze required some Epson Salts, which I'd never used before, so i tried the test both without and with the salts to see what difference it would make. Actually, it might quite the difference in terms of how the glaze turned out on the tiles. It was supposed to thicken the glaze itself, but after adding it i didn't notice a difference, but on the tile it was obviously thicker.

Tiles to the left of each pair
have the Epson salts

The interesting part was actually on the reverse side of the tiles where the glaze ended up being thicker...somehow. Usually i only take a photo of the front of the tiles but this time....YOU GET BOTH! don't you feel super special? Anyways, without the Epson salts the glaze came out super thin and dark as well as uneven and kinda lumpy. On the red tile the glaze became blistered and rough. However, on the tiles where the Epson salts had been added the glaze was more even over the whole tile and the colour came out beautifully. 

 

Two tiles to left have added Epson salts

I found it rather interesting, this glaze had both Bentonite and the Epson salts, both being suspenders, but with only the bentonite the glaze didn't stay in suspension. I didn't think that having the tiny 1.0% of Epson salts would make a difference, but it did, a really big difference! Even when thick the glaze didn't show any signs of moving although the recipe did warn to not get the glaze too thick or it would move. Actually, i rather liked it when it was applied a bit thicker, but not really as thick as it got on the reverse of the tiles.

Now, at this moment I do have all  the results of the triaxial test, they're lovely, BUT....I want to have time to analyze the results i got and to photograph it properly (there are 42 tiles....i can't photo them like i have done these other little tests). So until I have time to look over the test and photo it, you get teaser pictures of the test in progress~!

I was VERY organized when mixing the 21 glazes
as you can  clearly see...a little OCD..

 ....and maybe one more? All 42 tiles waiting patiently to go into the kiln, they went into the big ConeArt kiln this time since there was so many of them.

So many tiles...

Well, until next time
Cheers~!

...Like a Bowl of Jello

So, let's begin this post with some random chatter. This week has been a pain in the butt! I wanted to come in and glaze so much, but my large drawing project (about 3 feet tall and 5 feet wide) was demanding attention and my hip kinda gave up working (in short, I was born with hip dysplasia, it acts up at times...and when there are huge storms). So Wednesday was pretty much the day i spent on my bed, with muscle relaxer medication, feeling like a blob of jello. I bet you can guess where this is going eh? yeah, i wasn't able to get much glazing done this week...i feel bad. HOWEVER, I am not in short supply of new pictures to show you!

Last week I mentioned I did a glaze test with the crawling glaze where i turned it purple. well....the glaze ended up more of a deep...periwinkle colour, but it's super neat! I did add a bit of Rutile to the test to see if i could get anything interesting....it muted the colour a bit on the white tile and made the red tile super shiny and blended the crackly bits in, which looks pretty epic~   

Purple Crawling Test
two tiles to the left have no added Rutile

   

I love how the red tile turned out in both tests, and the white tile with no rutile is a great colour, but it might look even better with a dark glaze or even a good contrasting glaze colour underneath! or maybe a slip...something there so when the crackle cracks you get a peek of something underneath. oh, and that turquoise glaze is is in the kiln, and may i add Epsom salts made me rather excited. Not sure why. I rather enjoyed mixing the teenie tiny cup of water with the salts.

Should I be having this much fun when mixing glazes?

...is it unhealthy? oh well...

READING WEEK~! I'm doing my Triaxial! STAY TUNED!

Cheers~!

Where's The Lithium When You Need It?

#4 to #8 Line Test 1 Re-Test:
Top row is original test
 bottom row is new test

Alright,

        so this week feels a little packed. midterms, big projects flailing around and a little bit of emotional trauma in my personal life. I tried really hard to get in and do some more testing and was doing well until i found we had no more Lithium Carbonate...halfway through mixing a glaze. But I'm not empty handed! I did do three tests. This first test was to retest the center tiles in my previous line blend, tiles #4 through #8 to see if the colours were consistent. This time the kiln turned off! and i got a perfect cone 6 so I know if i were to fire them again at cone 6 that the colours are correct.
                

Another view of re-test, tiles on left are new test
tiles to the right are original test

 Oh and the kiln gods did say, it shall be consistent, and it was~!

Heh, but yes, the colours are pretty much the same minus some of the tiles which came out a little more blue than green in the thicker areas, but that's pretty minor. I took pictures in two different ways so it's easier to compare them, either as a line or individually side by side with their matching tile. I'm happy with the results and very impressed by this shiny clear glaze! it's being VERY versatile, i mean, it fired to cone 8, didn't run, didn't melt, didn't discolour! it's super fun to play around with as you'll see in my next couple tests..... teehee.

The next test i did was to try and make the glaze opaque since it was originally a clear glaze. When it is opaque it's easier to see the colour on the red body, because the red body is bothersome and likes to eat all the colour so you only see the red body. bugger. BUT HEY~ That's okay, because we love the red body don't we? it's so pretty all on it's own. So, continuing, i added some Tin Oxide to the recipe in increments of 2% up to 6% and tested it on both bodies. That's not all though....after a very interesting talk with Scott (Ye Technician and Ceramics Prof) he got me thinking of different surfaces, besides just a shiny glaze. With a good internet check and a quick read through Robbin Hopper's book  I added a whole lot of Magnesium Carbonate to the recipe.....and well...

Opaque and Crawling test. Left to right increased amount of Tin
Oxide by 2% to 6% on each body

 

 

You like? I like~ The crawling is very interesting on both clay bodies. I found that over 4% Tin Oxide was just over kill, it didn't make the glaze more opaque, so 4% will be what i use. Now, for the next test (I don't have pictures yet! sorry...they're in the kiln still) I'm taking the 4% Tin crawling opaque glaze and adding some colour to it! After looking over my poll it seems purple is winning so that's what it'll be!(it might be a little more mauve/pink, but that's close). The other test i was trying was a turquoise matte glaze, but it needs Lithium Carbonate..aaaaaaaand...we were all out. So i have to be patient and wait for more before i can continue making that glaze. 

I can wait, it just means the line test i wanted to do is being pushed back more. It makes me anxious since i wanted to get my triaxial blend started. It'll be a busy reading week, I'll tell ya that.

Anywho, It's time to sleep!

Cheers~!

OH! YOU DIDN'T MELT!

The melted cone pack......nice.

Let me begin by sobbing happily....the test tiles survived, at least in one piece, and the glazes, well....mostly worked (Although whose to say they'd come out the same colour if fired correctly, huh?). The cone pack really says it all. The cone 5 is completely melted to a point where it was adhered to the shelf it was sitting on and its completely smooth, no crease like the other two cones. Beautiful....

Onto the test tiles! They didn't melt, which makes me super happy, but they did dry out to nasty feeling things...like sandpaper..but worse *sigh* . The glazes on the white tiles came out interesting enough but the red tiles all came out the same colour...a deep...black...brown (how disappointing). For this sake, I only took pictures of the white tiles to show ya, since the red ones were just...sad. But the white ones look good! The blend is so...so very blendy. More blendy than I thought it would end up, it's almost like paint mixing part by part which I assumed wouldn't occur.

Line Blend1- left to right- Cobalt to Iron

The most interesting colour happened around the half and half point in the middle. The mixture made this lovely metallic grey blue that has a nice warm tone to it. It's defiantly a colour I would be interested in using if I could recreate it and it isn't simply a result of the over-firing that happened. I would be interested in simply retesting the center glaze to check and see, good thing I kept all eleven glazes...

Onwards to the next test~! Huzzah~

Colour Testing and The First Line Blend

The Colour Test- left to right: Copper, Cobalt, and Iron.

 Ah. The first weekly update....good times.

Actually no. Not good times. Tragic times. But I will get to that in due time....

To start, I begin my testing with a simple colour percent test to see the results of the colour saturation when the percentage is varied. Using a simple base I tested Copper, Cobalt and Iron (more specifically Copper Carbonate, Cobalt Carbonate, and Crocus Martis) between 1-2% for Copper and Cobalt and 2-6% for the Iron.  The test went well and the results were interesting, or at least to me. The tests were easy enough to do and I have to say the Iron test did what I thought all the tests would do, but they did not, which only makes me want to do more colour testing~! However....I have more tests to try so that will just have to wait.

Line Blend 1-Before the kiln

Continuing, from this test I picked two of the glazes, Iron at 4% and Cobalt at 2% and made them duel it out in a line blend. For this test I used a set of white tiles and a set of red so I could get more results (22 results to be exact). But this is where the tragic times comes in. I set my tiles in the test kiln Thursday around 7:00pm, at 5:00pm this evening I went to collect the tiles to see my results and the kiln was red hot. The latch that drops and stops the kiln so it can cool, never dropped. So my tiles stayed red hot for gosh knows how much longer than needed! I'm anxious to know if they are ruined...and if so I might be redoing the test....AND if so I might be begging for forgiveness for ruining a kiln. I wont know until tomorrow evening after I get off work and I know I'll be tied in knots until then.

Kiln gods were not smiling down on me today...

Let's Get This Started~!

So this is my first blog I've ever created, so it might be a little rocky and messy at first as I get used to it. I hope to update at least once a week at the end of the week, like Thursday or Friday. Along with weekly updates on my progress and exploration I also hope to post up pictures of what I'm working on and the results I obtain. I don't know how exciting glazing is for other people, or people using blogs, but if I get people following me I might let you help me name glazes I create :) Anywho, I'll be starting my mixing shortly so I'll get this place updated ASAP and maybe some photos will surface too~

Cheers~