Glaze Tests

I tried out some new Coyote glazes in the last firing.

I don't worry too much about how perfect my test tiles look.....They are cut out of trash clay with a hole punched in the top so I can string them onto a twist-tab loop. I turn up the bottoms to see how the glaze pools and lay a bamboo skewer over the lower part to see how the glaze breaks. Sometimes these little tiles get tied to the bail handle of the big glaze bucket for quick reference.

Five new glazes with extended combinations were tried. I marked the tiles with underglaze abbreviations, then went back after the firing and labeled them with a fine-point Sharpie. Also made note of the glaze that shouldn't be used with food vessels.

I also tested some little bowls to see how the glaze behaved on vertical surfaces.

As with most of these kinds of tests, there were a lot of things that just didn't work out. But there were also some intriguing results.

It's also a bit of a chore to photograph the glazes, process the pictures through a computer program and adjust the colors to mirror the true colors of the pieces. But now I can take the jpgs and print them off, file them as references for the next time I want to use these glazes.

Here's Fire Opal on a bowl. I've tried this one before, and I find it interesting, but I'm just not sure what to do with it.

There's another Coyote glaze called Rhubarb that is very much like it. You really have to be careful with a pink-ish glaze. It can come off as being frivolous. It will be interesting to combine it with eggplant or a tan glaze.

Eggplant is a very intriguing glaze. Here it is applied thickly to a bowl. The color is very rich. It turns out matt and pretty well covers everything.

Here is Eggplant applied to a small bowl. The green is the result of a thinner layer than the purple, which is two layers thick. This glaze will be one that will either wow you or drive you crazy.

Creamy Matt fires rather thickly, gives a uniform matt finish. It might be a good base to bounce other glazes off of. I will try some shiny transparent on it and see what happens. It holds it's own up against Copper Blue, which is runny.

The Iron Matt is also good covering and a pleasing brown, but cannot be used for food surfaces. I'll probably go back to the plain Iron Tan from Seattle Pottery Supply I have been using because of that.

Eggplant over Creamy Matt could be an interesting combination as well as Eggplant over Iron Matt.

And Copper Blue looks good over Tan Matt. Almost turns into lizard skin where it's thick.

I am really interested in the result of Eggplant over Copper Blue. That could be a real winner.