Gift and Amaco underglaze info at cone 6
Tile by Mary Cay
My good friend and former ceramics instructor, Mary Cay, popped over for a visit last Monday evening. It was so good to see her again and she came bearing a gift for me. She gave me the tile above that I had long coveted and was originally part of an exchange we arranged when I helped her set up her website last year.
It was so good to catch up and I was very excited to hear that she has found space to set up a ceramic studio again in the Denver area after a period of abstinence from clay due to a bit of a life change. I’m looking forward to visiting her studio once she has it set up. Maybe she’ll let me share a few photographs of her studio at a later date….
Bottom of mug attached to kiln shelf
I learned something valuable the other day. I did a couple of glaze tests in my test kiln on a couple of mugs I will be swapping with other EMT members as a part of our annual EMT Secret Mug Swap this month. Unfortunately, this one experienced a bit of a problem and one for which I’m grateful. Why am I grateful, you ask? Because I discovered something about using Amaco LUG Decorating Colors that will save me from making a similar mistake again.
At cone 6, the Amaco LUGs melt like a glaze – they must have some fluxing agents included in the recipe, whereas at cone 05 (the recommended firing temperature), they are a flat matte texture. I figured that if Duncan Cover Coats can fire to up to cone 10 and maintain their color, then the Amaco products should too in theory.
The problem is that the Amaco underglaze acted like a glaze and fused to the kiln shelf – the good news is that it only affected 1 mug and not 40 (the number I have waiting to be glazed this week). Lesson learned. Why does pottery have such a learning curve?
Another good discovery, the raspberry color on the exterior is left over from my cone 6 pink and violet glaze tests and is very stable – it stays put and doesn’t run AND I can brush it on which means that I could conceivably make smaller batches of the glaze so that I don’t have to make big dipping batches.
Meanwhile, I mixing glazes today since I have about 3 bisque loads to glaze in the next week and will visit the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver later on this afternoon with my family. Stay tuned for more on solar energy in the coming weeks.
Have a good weekend,
~Cynthia
Success! Pink and Violet ^6 Glaze Test Recipes Part 2
This is a continuation of my last post.
Mason Stains in ^6 Glazes
In my second round of testing, I was optimistic that I’d found the holy grail of base glaze recipes to achieve a pink ^6 glaze – but I was mentally prepared to open the kiln this morning and find nada. Imagine my surprise and delight, when I opened my kiln and found these gorgeous tiles! After loads of research and internet sleuthing, I happened upon this article by Tony Hanson that included a recipe for a base glaze good for chrome/tin colorants on the ceramic-materials.com on Sunday morning. I quickly made up 3 test batches of the base glaze and fired up my little test kiln yesteray with anticipation.
To be expected, color developed much better after using a higher percentage of colorant. I decided to try up to 12% stain this time just to compare with my tests a couple of days ago where I used up to 10% stain. Truth be told, 10% is plenty – but I wanted to see if it made any difference. It looks like color doesn’t start to really develop until tile 3 which would be 25% of the total amount of stain used (in this case, 25% of 12 = 3% of the total 100 gram recipe which results in a very pastel color). I’m guessing that when I test some blues & greens, I will need even less colorant since cobalt and copper are much stronger colorants. Also, I’m going to try redoing the pink glaze using chrome oxide and tin with the new base glaze. Yesterday, Annie generously forwarded another chrome/tin compatible recipe to try and my friend Mary Cay emailed me this morning reminding me about a recipe that she included in the materials from a glaze workshop I took with her last year. Thank you to both of you!
I also retested the chartreuse stain using the pink base glaze #4 (used with the pink and violet stains sucessfully) from Tony Hanson. I’m interested in have 1 or 2 base glazes so that I only have to buy minimal ingredients in bulk for future use. And, I had a thought… I plan on using a combination of 2 different glazes for my work. For example, glaze the exterior of a cup violet and the interior chartreuse. My thinking is that if violet is a chrome/tin glaze that can have no zinc, magnesium and needs calcium – then some funky stuff might happen where the violet and chartreuse glazes meet. But, not if they’re the same parent base glaze (or so goes my rational). I may be wrong and I plan on calling Mason Color later today to ask some questions.
There is a slight color difference between the 2 glazes. The one tested in the last post is more green, whereas the one with the pink base glaze #4 truly is more mustard yellow. If that’s what I’m going for, I could simply use rutile as the colorant at a lower cost than the mason stains. I suppose this is the whole point of testing; to see what can be learned and how to apply the knowledge effectively.
Thermal Expansion and Clay/Glaze Fit
I still need to find out a little bit more information too, before I mix up big batches of glaze. Kris left a comment on my last post about the thermal expansion of the clay body I use. If the clay body and the glaze’s thermal expansion don’t jive, crazing and a host of other issues could crop up down the road. Funny, thing is that I was just reading up on this last night in Mastering Cone 6 Glazes, Chapter 5 “Fitting Glazes to Your Clay Body”. I need to call Mile Hi Ceramics this morning when they open and find out what the thermal expansion is for the 2 clay bodies I generally use – Ash (^6 white stoneware) and Aspen (^6 porcelain). If the glaze is too big for the clay body, shivering results. If the clay is too big for the glaze, crazing results. Shivering is not cool – chunks of glassy glaze falling off the ware. Crazing (fine crackling) is sometimes desirable for some potters, but isn’t really a good attribute for functional ware that comes into contact with food.
Update: Neither of the people I spoke with at Mile Hi Ceramics know the thermal expansion of their clay bodies – I was told to call back when the owner is in. Boohoo. Am I over thinking this?
Using Underglazes to ^6
I did come upon some other interesting test tiles in my studio a few weeks ago while cleaning. These were tests that I had mis-fired last year involving Duncan Cover Coat Underglazes. I was doing these tests to provide my kid’s clay classes reference color chips. The kids always wanted to know what the various colors were going to look like when fired. My mishap was due to my Aim cone 10 test kiln over firing due to a couple of very careless mistakes. I put a small pyrometric cone 6 in the kiln sitter, loaded the kiln, turned it on, ramped up the heat on my predetermined schedule. My mistakes: I wasn’t around when it was supposed to turn off and when I opened the kiln in the morning I realized that the kiln had totally over fired because one of the shelves was touching the kiln sitter. I’m not quite sure what temperature the kiln reached – the pyrometric cone was totally melted and black (normally white after a succesful ^6 firing) and the kiln fires to cone 10. It’s a good possibility that these tests were fired to cone 8-10, depending on how long it took the pyrometric cone to melt allowing the sitter to turn the kiln off.
I used cone 6 porcelain test tiles and though they didn’t melt or even bloat, they all have a sheen to them like glaze in all the unglazed places. So, why am I telling you this? Because I found out that Duncan Cover Coats can be fired quite high and retain their colors. When I get around to photographing them, I’ll post those results. Underglazes would certainly be an option for me to use as a colorant under a clear glaze. I should redo these tests firing them to cone 6 and compare the results. I have everything from yellow, organge, red, violet, light and dark blues, green and black in my “failed” tests.
I originally wanted to toss these test tiles since I was angry at myself for my mistakes, but held onto them for some reason. There’s something to learn in both our successes and more often in our mistakes. Zen master is teaching me again 
So – I’ll post those tests later this week for you.
Meanwhile, I’ll be teaching a kid’s class at the Art Student’s League of Denver starting next Monday called, “Mixed Media Marionettes”. The class is now full and is for grades 3-5 but, lucky for me I will have an assistant to help. I will be spending part of my time this week making the proto-type and lesson plans for the class so I’m well prepared. I pulled my daughter’s wood marionette down from her bedroom ceiling ceiling the other day and am studying its construction so I can successfully recreate a working one next week with the kids. I’m also deliberately working fast since we only have 5 days to work on these. 3 with wet clay and the other 2 decorating, assembling and hopefully playing with them on the last day.
Whew… have a good day,
~Cynthia
Mask Maker, Mask Maker, Make Me a Mask…
Okay, so maybe my riff on Fiddler on The Roof is a little cheesy, but it’s the first thing that pops into my head when I see all these fabu masks made in my kid’s clay class drying in my studio. I’ll share a couple of my favorites later on after they’re painted. In the interest of time, we’re going to paint our masks with acrylic paints rather, than using glazes or under-glazes.
After moving into my studio a few weeks ago, I have found several things that I had previously stashed away for future use. You know those things that you’re saving for when you need them, only you can never find them again. Well, among the items that are newly found, were these bisqued porcelain test tiles. I decided to go ahead and paint one with each of my Duncan Cover Coat Underglazes – and then add a clear glaze to half of each tile to see what the difference would be. Makes sense, right? I will have a library of test tiles to help me decide how to finish work in the future.
All of the test tiles had been bisqued to cone 04 – and the test tiles are a cone 6 clay. Based on a previous successful experiment with my colorful hand-painted buttons, I used a cone 06 clear glaze and glazed my cone 6 porcelain test tiles. Now for you non ceramic people – this can be a problem because the glaze and the clay body aren’t a good firing fit. But, since this was for my own knowledge, and I didn’t have any low fire earthenware test tiles available, I went ahead and used the porcelain ones.
Thank goodness I did, because I made a fatal mistake during my firing yesterday. The kiln over fired, the 06 cone in the kiln setter melted down, and I have no idea how hot my kiln actually fired to. It’s rated to cone 10, so I would assume that it didn’t get hotter than that. Why is this a good thing that I used the wrong temperature clay? If I had used a low fire earthenware clay body like I should have, an over-firing would have melted all of the clay to the kiln shelves and would have been one big mess. Instead, most of my color test tiles are merely washed out and I’ll need to do the test tiles again.
The other interesting thing is that some of the cone 06 glazes had an interesting outcome in the higher temperature firing, including the buttons below which should be a bright plum/purple color. They’re now a gorgeous periwinkle blue color.
It would be great if I could always have a perfect outcome every time I go to my studio with ne’er an error. But, alas, I learn more every single time I do make a mistake. It’s a good, but frustrating event. What else did I find out? That my cone 6 porcelain clay body can be fired higher than cone 6, that I need to pay more attention when I’m loading the kiln, and that cool things sometimes happen when you push the material’s limits. After doing some research online (Thank God for the Internet), I most likely had a kiln shelf touching the kiln sitter which prevented the rod that the cone sits on from automatically turning off the kiln. My little test kiln is a tight fit and I was trying to cram as much as I could in there. It also reinforced that I should always be present around the time when my kiln should automatically shut off to prevent further disasters.
I can’t think of another medium that requires so much trial-error and technical gymnastics – okay – maybe printing, glass, jewelry….
Meanwhile, I had breakfast at a fabulous breakfast joint called Lucile’s here in Denver this am with 2 of my running buddies from Denver Fit. Wow – delicious, I had the Eggs Benedict something which I never make at home. I’d rather eat there every Saturday, than lace up my running shoes and do 10 miles!
Have a good weekend,
~Cynthia
