Saturday, July 16, 2022

It's Saturday so it's a day for old photos

I would rather be the man who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than the one who sold it. -Will Rogers, humorist (4 Nov 1879-1935)


My weekly contribution to Sepia Saturday continues, though I slide off the meme often. I sure enjoy reading other folks contributions though!

This week we have...


My closest use of a weighing scale was when I was mixing glazes in pottery testing, to see if I could come up with a glaze that did something I wanted, or to see if it came up with something else entirely.

Unfortunately I don't have photos of all those tests. But let me check and see if I blogged about them...so there might be some old posts somewhere...

A glaze combo that I liked, first the whole vase is submerged in matt black glaze (studio recipe) after drying for a few hours, I brushed a liberal coat of white glaze on it. The clay itself is a white body, so when the glaze breaks the clay that shows is a slightly different shade of white.


This is my glaze recording sketch book.  I have those few "OK" circles when something came out somewhat the way I liked.

This test bowl has a base glaze but with different streaks of other glazes across it...so I can see what is most compatible.

Same as above but here is on a spoon rest.

Here I threw a lot of little vases off the hump (a big lump of clay on the wheel) and then tried different glaze combinations...some of which were recorded in the sketch book.

I used a formula for Snowflake Glaze which I found in Ceramic's Monthly magazine...so I mixed the basic colorless glaze, tried it on top of some detailed colors. It only gets the pretty crystals on the insides of things, where it is pretty thickly applied. 

I used the basic snowflake glaze and tried adding a very small amount of cobalt...thus.

Not sure what this had added...perhaps chrome. 

I helped another potter make lots of glaze test tiles for the studio glazes. That's what these are called. We started with one basic glaze on each set, then after it was dry, we dipped them in other different glazes about halfway down. There are some lines and dots on the little towers so we could see how glazes might "break" over features like those on pottery. Here they are waiting to go in the kiln to fire to cone 6...about 2200 degrees F.

Oh another important part was writing the glazes on each little tile.

Here's a selection of glazes over the base glaze of Eggshell. 

There's a huge display of all the glazes available in the studio on the wall. Of course people can also purchase ready made glazes, or formulate their own from reliable recipes. 

I even bought a book by a local glaze master, John Britt, all about cone 6 glazes. Didn't get much use, because I retired from making pottery 2-1/2 years ago. 

I do miss my friends at the studio, but with COVID I just have stayed away for the last 2 years, while they put in lots of restrictions as to how many potters could be in the studio at a time, etc.

Sharing with my art blog "Alchemy of Clay"

20 comments:

  1. ...what a treat to see your pottery. This is something that I'd love to do, perhaps someday.

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    1. Oh I do hope you try it Tom, as it's very nice for the soul, if you will. Many folks come away from their creative endeavors saying they thought it a very therapeutic process. And you can give the products to people as Christmas presents, if you wish!

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  2. These are amazing! I love them.
    (ツ) from Jenn Jilks , ON, Canada!

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    1. Thanks Jenn...I did love your post today, and forgot to comment. May have to go back later.

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  3. The pottery pieces are lovely. Take care, have a great day!

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    1. Thanks Eileen, and I really enjoyed your critters today too! Have a great weekend yourself!

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  4. How fascinating. I loved reading this and seeing your beautiful pots.

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    1. Thanks Jenny. Hope you have a great weekend, and stay cool!

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  5. You are quite an accomplished pottery artist. I have limited experience with pottery but love having it.

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    1. You are a very important part of the equation of making pottery. If people didn't use it, or have it in their homes, us potters would be under this big mountain of pots!

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  6. Interesting! The snowflake glaze with cobalt is, perhaps, my favorite.

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  7. I really enjoyed reading this, seeing some of your work, and understanding just a little more about the process. I have given up a few things during this tiring pandemic too and I am sometimes a little cranky about it.

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    1. Not only the pandemic brought an end to my pottery making. Let's just say parts of my body wore out about the same time!

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  8. My daughter is a potter and just shared some glaze mixing photos recently. I have only tried to make a slab glass, which thinned and broke where I stamped a plant on it. Next time I visit her I will try again.

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    1. Good idea to keep trying. Clay is a finicky medium until you get used to its limitations, then watch out, there's no end of possibilities!

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  9. I always enjoy seeing your work, even if just "test" pieces. i had not appreciated how much a potter can be a kind of alchemist too. As a woodworker I do pretty good at constructing something like a chair, table, or cabinet. But getting that final finish to look good and show the wood at its best requires artistry that's often combined with a bit of chemistry. Recently I tried a new finishing technique for small woodturnings that uses thin super glue fixed with an instant accelerator. At first it seemed easy enough to apply but it turned blotchy and required more glue followed by sanding, Then repeat again and again. In the end it became too much like plastic instead of wood, but worse was discovering that some of the extra glue had dripped onto my lathe adding unwanted blobs of stuff that were very difficult to remove. So much for that experiment :–{

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    1. Oh your poor lathe...I think you were very brave to try super glue as a finish...something I sure wouldn't attempt. Polyurethane might look the same, but perhaps changes colors below it.

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