Sunday, August 2, 2015

honey jar

This is one of the jars from the last firing.  The glaze is called Tenmoku Gold.  Normally it is more brown than gold with the gold crystals (I'm calling them crystals but I don't know if that is correct term) standing out like little jewels suspended in the glaze.  The overabundance of crystals I seemed to achieve in this firing is not unattractive, but not what I was looking for. It's been awhile since I've used this glaze and suspect that the cool-down cycle I now use is slower than where I had it previously set.  It's possible that the iron oxide in this latest batch of glaze is from a different source than what I've used before, but I don't believe that would have caused the difference in the crystals.  I predict another add-on to the glaze bucket notations:  firing schedule.  Sometimes the changes I make are gradual and don't seem significant enough to make note of at the time.
One of the honey pots is at Riverside Artists Gallery and two more are at my booth at River City Farmer's Market in Marietta. 
Two more are set aside for a customer who requested this glaze, but since I still have a couple honey pots that didn't get in the last firing I'll probably fire with a faster cool-down schedule and see if the results are more like the mug below before showing them to her.
The glaze on this mug is from a firing I did a couple of years ago and is my preference.  As usual, click on pictures to enlarge. 

8 comments:

  1. Lovely glaze for the honey pots. Reminds me of honey.

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  2. I believe the glaze effect is called "Tea Dust".
    Perfectly beautiful on your honey pot.

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    Replies
    1. I've heard that and "Gold Dust" also.
      Thanks.

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  3. Melissa, I use this glaze quite a bit. You can refire to ^4 and do a fast fire, quick up and down. It retains some of the crystals and should look like the pot is dipped in honey. I now fire this glaze twice as routine. I use it on a standard porcelain clay body, I think the last kiln load was 551. The work is just lovely.

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  4. This looks like the glaze I use at @ cone 6. My experience has been that the cooler it is fired the more the surface is enveloped by 'crystals'. The hotter it is fired the more the 'crystals' melt. Sandy above suggests you can refire at cone 4 and still retain the crystal effect, but my experience of refiring at cone 6 is that no crystals will survive unless the first firing was severely underfired. One issue I've had with getting it too hot is that the glaze boils. Slow cooling would probably help heal the blisters, but I've also had success refiring the pots and healing the bubbles. Of course no crystals then, but the glaze gets this deep black streaking that is also nice. Win/win for me :)

    Good luck!


    Carter

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    Replies
    1. Hello Sandy and Carter, I fired the pots to cone 6. Maybe I should print out your tips and attach to the glaze bucket so I remember!
      Thanks for the advice!

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  5. The glaze does look perfect on that honey jar but not like I would expect from a tenmoku.
    I once fired a tenmoku (John Britt’s recipe) to ^6 then retired in a bisque to ^06 which made it look a lot more yellow (tea dust as Cindy wrote) but more matt and no where near as pretty as yours.

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