Glazing - Applying Glazes & Oxides to Textured Test Tiles

Glazing
I haven’t yet ‘dipped my toe’ into making glazes, but I have gotten hold of some books and have dowloaded the glazy app, so I intend make a start on creating a simple base glaze and then adding colours in small increments to see what effect that has. At present I rely on commercial glazes which are mainly brush on. When I have used a dipping glaze, these have been purchased as a premixed bag of dry ingredients. I will blog about 

I used the Ceramics Departments clear and white stoneware glazes in combination with different oxides on the textured tiles I had created during the first week on the MA. 

These tiles were given an application of  a variety of different oxide washes. I used Copper oxide, Red Iron Oxide, Cobalt Oxide and Yellow Ochre &  black Iron Oxide. The tiles were then dipped a third in clear glaze, a third in white glaze and the centre left unglazed with just oxide showing. The results were interesting, was good to see how the glazes and oxide broke over the texture, I think I applied the black and copper oxides to heavily as they came out very dark in places. It was good to see how the white glaze reacted with the oxides. I have used oxides before but only in a very limited way, I hadn’t appreciated how strong the colours are and how they can create both bright shades of green and blue as well as deep metallic tones depending on the level of application. All these were fired in oxidation and I was really encouraged to experiment further.

I am also planning to create my own glazes as well, although commercial glazes are fairly reliable in terms of consistent results, they can be easily replicated by other ceramic artists and you could have work that has a glaze finish very similar to another artist. A good glaze can make or break a pot, and it’s important that whatever surface finish I choose it reflects the overall desired outcome of the work aesthetically and narratively and the only way I can realistically achieve this is by creating my own glazes.

Having the opportunity to learn about the origin of glaze ingredients and the core components that work together to make up a glaze, a flux, a stabiliser and a glass former really helped to de-mystify the process of glaze creation and made me feel less daunted about having a go, so watch this space!