Glazing Tutorials in pictures |
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| Glazing a large coil built bowl | |
The final result of your glaze can be affected by:
The "batch" of glaze you used. Like cooking, the recipe does not always come out the same. And it must be stirred thoroughly each time before you use it.
How thick the glaze is on your piece.
The project itself including:
The clay you used. The color and texture of your clay may affect the final glaze.
The shapes and surfaces of your project. Is it smooth, or rough? Have you added texture (stamps or grooves, etc.) to the piece? Horizontal surfaces vs. Vertical or sloping surfaces of the same piece may have different results as the glaze melts and moves.
Many glazes will "break" where there is a sharp (or not so sharp) corner, ie. the lip of a pot, the handle of a mug, a sharp indentation of a stamp.
The firing the product was in. This has many unknowns including:
How long the kiln was fired, where your piece was in the kiln, what pieces were next to yours and how close they were.
Some of the glazes seem to be more "dependable" such that they almost always come out as you expect. Others seem to surprise more times than not.
Take a look at the glazing room, the big gas-fired glaze kiln and a completed kilnload of pottery below.
The glazing room with buckets full of prepared glaze, tables to work on and chemicals that are used to produce the glazes from glaze recipes.
The gas-fired glaze kiln is large enough to walk inside. Here it has been cooled to 140°F and then pulled open a bit to let it cool more before unloading. See the windows in the door? Those are used for checking the cones to verify the temperature at stages in the firing.
The finished load of glazed pottery. Note the kiln shelves which have been coated with kiln wash to help keep glaze from sticking to it. Fire bricks are used as supports for the kiln shelves. Pieces of similar size are loaded together to make the best use of the space available.
This is a load of finished pottery, ready for the students to pick up. It is always like Christmas when a load of pottery comes out of the glaze kiln. Seeing the forms and colors is always exciting. Be careful though, if you handle another student's work. You don't want to be responsible for damage to someone's project.
