Glaze Tests, Lino-Cut Update and EZ Screen Print
Working at the ceramic studio at the Art Student’s League of Denver allowed me extensive use of their bucket and commercial glazes which was fabulous. I had a great deal of options available to me. Now that I am going to be working from my home studio, I am faced with the daunting task of making my own glazes or purchasing commercial glazes. Stocking and furnishing my studio has proved to be expensive and I have a wish list a mile long. I knew it would be like this in the beginning so I make do where I can. I have the basics and it’s amazing how many common every day things can substitute for the “real” equipment.
For example, I’d like a slab roller but a good one cost $1,000+. So, I use a humble rolling pin, 2 wooden slats as guides to get an even thickness and regular old canvas. It works but not with the same ease as a slab roller. One of my first tasks is deciding which glazes I want to use in my studio. For functional ware, it’s much more economical to make my own glazes. For the time being, I’ve decided on a clear, white, pale blue, blue/green and celadon. I, know they’re all related colorwise. I do think I could have some versatility with the clear and white by adding mason stains for the colorant.
I decided to make 3,000 gram batches of each glaze for my studio to start. I already know that this isn’t enough. I made these in 5 gallon buckets – and initially added too much water to the raw materials when I made the glaze. I won’t be able to dip my work, but will have to brush on the glaze. I’m lazy in that regard and want to dip my work. I don’t mind brushing on the glaze, but it’s difficult to get an even application of glaze. So, I’ll most likely be making larger batches in the future. After making the glaze and then firing these test tiles, I decanted a lot of water from the buckets. They’re a-ok right now.
I had a glaze fire in my mini Aim 88T Test Kiln yesterday and just peeked in the kiln this morning. I’m so pleased with the outcome of the firing and my new work! One of the items that went into the kiln were these little stoneware canvases above. I’ll share the glaze fired results in my next post. I brushed on black underglaze and then wiped off a good bit of that so that the black would sink into the recessed areas of the relief prints. Twitters about…
Last week, I ordered the EZ Screen Print Kit. On Saturday, the kit arrived in the mail and I’m excited to try it out. I think I’m going to start by screening underglaze onto a couple of test pieces and see how that works, because I still have to order the decal paper and the overglaze. Mile Hi Ceramics doesn’t carry overglazes, and Stone Leaf Pottery is closed on Mondays, so I might have to place an online order for someAmaco Water Based Versa Color Overglazes. This would be awesome if these worked because they’re water based vs. oil based and they’re lead free. China paint and overglaze traditionally include lead as an ingredient which would not make this type of work suitable for functional work – nor is lead something I want to expose myself to.
Meanwhile, today, I’m going to go to Meiningers or Jerry’s Art-O-rama to pick up some Lazertran to do some cold surface image transfers onto a glazed surface that is already prepared!
Have a good week everyone,
Beginning, Middle and End
The cylinder above and the one below were part of a 4 part exercise to play around with different surface decorations on thrown forms. Both techniques are similar in that I carved away a design from the clay when it was still green (unfired). The difference is that the one below used a colored slip on the surface. I colored slip with copper carbonate and a little rutile to get the light green color on the raised portions of the cylinder.
So where do I go from here? I like both the techniques and am incorporating colored slip and carving in my new work. 2 of the other techniques that I’m trying are a cold surface technique using my Shiva Paintsticks and other 2d materials. It also means that the surface decoration will be done after the piece is bisqued, and will never be glaze fired. It will render the piece non-functional since it won’t be able to withstand much handling which has its place in ceramics. Finally, the last technique that I tried was to carve a shaped stamp from some spongy foam material which I then used to apply glaze on the cylinder. The latter should be out of the kiln tomorrow.
I also like to consider the uses of every object that I make including my experiments. I think that these would make great utensil holders – practical and useful. In other news, my inlaws are in town visiting from San Antonio and will be here for a week, so I’m not sure how much I’m going to get accomplished in the next few days.
Cone 6 Glaze Test Tiles and Keywords/Search Engine Optimization
Gee, is it really Thursday already, because it feels like the week is just flying by! Here in Colorado, we have been enjoying warm spring days for the past few weeks; that was until Mother Nature decided to remind us that she’s still in charge. We woke up to about 4 inches of snow in the Denver metro area this morning. I really can’t complain because come summer we’ll be crying for moisture.
My goal for my blog is to post every 2-3 days, and this week I let 4 days stretch between posts…. Not my intention, but what can you do? I could backdate my post to make it look like I posted yesterday, but I won’t. It’s not like I don’t have anything to say either. I have a blog post saved as a draft with future blog topics all ready to go.
Anyway, let me get back on topic. I wanted to share my glaze test tiles that came out of the kiln last week. I had tested a high calcium semi-matte base glaze recipe from Mastering Cone 6 Glazes, page 89 in the book, and then added variations in color: 3 to be exact. I also re-tested the cone 6 Chinese Blue Green recipe, which compared side by side with my tests from college, turned out perfectly! My ceramic’s mentor, Mary Cay, is coaching me through my glaze testing and is having me use Robin Hopper’s method using the “color progressions pie” from page 187 in The Ceramic Spectrum.
Do you remember back in high school or college math, thinking to yourself, “when am I ever going to need to use this information again?” Well, I had to dust off my algebraic capabilities from my brain files in order to calculate the glaze recipe once my tiles came out. I was scratching my head, wondering how am I going to get the colorant amounts for test tile #5 from the pie?? Algebra to the rescue. The algebraic formula is explained on page 190 of The Ceramic Spectrum.
In other news, I subscribe to an online newsletter called Practical E-Commerce and there was a really good article today on keywords and how to choose wisely to optimize your website’s ranking with search engines. I’m paying attention, because when I google my name, my blog comes up first and foremost, but not my website. I have two domains pointing to my website, http://cynthiaguajardo.com and http://coloradoartstudio.com, and my website doesn’t come up on the first few pages of my google search. Now my blog comes up #1 and my blog does have a link to my website, but how many people are going to poke around to find it?
If I search for pottery, ceramic pottery, ceramic vase, handmade pottery or other vague search terms, my site is no where to be seen. So, the question is how can I choose and narrow down the focus of my keywords to help people find my website? Here’s a link to a free keyword analyzer that will help to narrow down that search. Obviously, hitting the streets, networking, word of mouth will help people find my work, but my quest is to help my website stand out anonymously on the Internet. The article advises that webmasters use narrowed down specific search terms. In other words, pretend to be one of your customers. Think like a consumer of your product. What would you search for?
