Art 399: CUPS 51-60

Let's talk about glazes.  I really wanted to work with celadon glazes on my porcelain/porcelaneous stoneware pieces.  Celadon glazes have more glass former, making the glazes translucent with subtle hints of color.  I made 3 different celadons:  Choy Blue, Basic Green Celadon, and Chun Clear.  I made test tiles to see how they behaved in a reduction kiln first before glazing the cups.  I was so excited about these pieces... I was excited about having pieces come out of the kiln the way I imagined.

But they didn't come out the way I imagined at all.  There were all types of faults with the glazes I couldn't predict...

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Texture with Resist Etching.  Choy Blue.  Bailey, reduction fired, 4-14-10.

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Texture with Resist Etching.  Choy Blue.  Bailey, reduction fired, 4-14-10.

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Texture with Resist Etching.  Choy Blue.  Bailey, reduction fired, 4-14-10.

I had such high hopes for these 3 pieces.  I spent alot of time building them, 2 part chalices.  I love the color of this glaze, but both the glaze and the application were much too thick... and look at how they ran!  On cup 53... it completely didn't stick to the clay!  I was really upset with they way these came out.  Not the first time, or the last, to be disappointed by ceramics.

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Texture with Resist Etching.  Bernie's Satin Matte.  Soda fired, 3-25-10.

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Texture with Resist Etching.  Chun Clear.  Bailey, reduction fired, 4-14-10.

Check out that pink!  This glaze, chun clear, was suppose to be a really pale aqua blue.  The secret:  to achieve the blue-green it needs to be fired in an oxidation kiln.  When fired in reduction (the process of removing the oxygen from the kiln) we get this subtle range of rose/pink.  So I was disappointed because of this wasn't what I expected... but one of the grad students was really impressed with this glaze.  Traditionally this pink is unpredictable and difficult to achieve.  In several of the next pieces I combined the chun clear with the basic green.  So the weird combination of rose and green was not intended (cup 50 & 58).

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Acero and Black Tea Dust.  Bailey, reduction fired, 4-14-10.

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Fluting.  Chun Clear.  Bailey, reduction fired, 4-14-10.

This piece shows a bit of the color I was expecting with the small aqua spot... I guess a little oxygen did get into the kiln.

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Chun Clear and Basic Green Celadon.  Bailey, reduction fired, 4-14-10.

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Chun Clear and Choy Blue.  Bailey, reduction fired, 4-14-10.

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Texture, incising.  Choy Blue.  Soda fired 3-25-10.