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~