
Clay + Imagination = Art class masks
More elementary school age kid’s masksOkay, 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.

Test tiles with under-glaze and clear glazeAfter 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
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