Skip to main content

Latest results with crater glaze....

The story of my trials with textural stoneware has been a long drawn out affair, with lots of experimentation- and a fair degree of success and failure along the way. It's documented here on the blog, with early tests  recorded in about 2012- but in truth I've been dabbling a lot longer without much in the way of luck- and a lot of melted kiln shelves! The appeal of crater/lava/volcanic glazing lies in the directness and spontaniety of the effect- which seems somewhat akin to the immediacy and spirit of Raku, and it's randomn unpredictability.

I settled on a base volcanic glaze with a thick white matte glaze which is applied over the top of the bisque pot. This has about 4-5 percent of silicon carbide within the base volcanic glaze recipe which of course reacts and bubbles in the glaze firing. I fire to 1240c in oxidation, and the beauty of this particular technique is that if the glaze bubbled too violently -it  can be rubbed back with a stone- glaze re applied and re-fired- multiple times till the desired surface is achieved.

I've used a white ash glaze which is a semi gloss using ash saved from our Rayburn stove. It creates a nice contrast. I also have to name check a Stephen Murfitt recipe for bronze- black - and again this seems to pair well against the white finish of the lava and ash glazes. I use this in the foot of the bowls and tea bowls.

At the moment I've tried these on thrown ware, but I'm hopeful it might work well on sculptural forms allowing me to progress with the surfaces in addition to my work in raku. It's been a long time coming  but it feels like the start of something new at last.










Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Making and firing Raku tiles

I have just had in one or two orders and enquiries concerning Raku tiles. Making them  can drive you to despair- what with their tendancy to warp, crack and shrink! It's amazing how something so simple is in actual fact so hard to make.  It's also very difficult to  lift a flat object out of the kiln with tongs from a red hot kiln. Well, with some prior experience,  I've developed a firing system for tiles now which is now working pretty well. Quite simply, I lay each tile on a flat bed of ceramic fibre. That way each tile is raised slightly off the kiln shelf- and it's then easy to grasp the tile with tongs and drop into your reduction chamber/smoking bin. I stack  two or three kiln shelves and can pack in  about 20 tiles in one batch - depending on size. I do let the kiln cool slightly before carefully removing each shelf of tiles. I back off the gas- get each shelf of tiles out- then power back up to temperature and repeat till they're all safely out of th

Early days with volcanic and crater glaze part 2....

I glazed a couple of volcanic/crater glaze tapered bowls recently. They almost "half" work- but I'm still not convinced I've got it right- although it's promising. I layered combinations of glaze but I'm having a slight problem with the thick layers of silicon carbide glaze crawling. Sticky fingers maybe? Lots more to come over the next few months, probably with the next recipe- Pinnel Strontium Crater - with a variety of glaze stain additions . It's a pretty reliable recipe so fingers crossed.

Some more Crater glaze test results

I've been blathering on about Crater and Lava Glaze recipes here and on Facebook too. I suddenly "got the bug" as well as a commission- (more on this later) so hence the rather manic activity testing out glazes and destroying kiln shelves in the process with runny, bubbling glazes. I tested 2 recipes- after first trying the usual recipes from the internet and in various books. As I suspected - few of them gave satisfactory results- either it was "pilot error" or the glaze authors just happen to neglect to tell you that vital missing  ingredient, kiln temperature or soak time etc! (Know the type of thing?) Anyway I resorted to testing 2 standard glaze recipes which I've had for years. A turquoise matte and a Lucy Rie white stoneware. The jury is still out on the turquoise variant- but the white is rather nice. A little suggestion from Potter Jan Lewin Cadogan  http://www.janlewin-cadogancontemporaryceramics.co.uk/ put me right by suggesting to mix the g