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 ...

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.

Good-bye for now see you around the internet!

 As you no doubt have garnered I haven't been posting much on my blog as I would have liked this year. A combination of Covid, lockdown, and a double family bereavement have kind of lessened my enthusiasm this year for blogging. However, I am still potting, perhaps more so than ever and hope now that my work/life circumstances have changed I can devote more time to my passion for making ceramics.  I've always potted in my spare time, so the only good thing to come out of this last year has been time and the ability to focus more on my ceramic work. I have some exciting opportunities in the pipeline which I'm sure I will mention when the time is right on other internet forums! In the meantime I'm continuing to make and fire raku work and develop work in textural high fired volcanics. I hope in 2021 to push the scale aspect of my sculptural work and return to some copper matte firings.  I've enjoyed sharing what I do here on the blog. You can always track me down on f...