Art by Fuzzy

Pottery, Photography, Design - Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz

Glaze Tests – Spring 2012

My first attempt at mixing my own glazes!

After reading most of Mastering Cone 6 Glazes by Ron Roy and John Hessleberth, here are my results. (Finally!) I decided to focus on just one base glaze, the Glossy Clear Liner and then add some colorants to get some idea of what they do. Below are some photos of the finished Warm Brown Stoneware test tiles after being fired to cone 6. Click the images to get to a bigger, more readable version.

glossy clear liner 1

glossy clear liner 1

For Group 1 (above) I started with the Glossy Clear Liner on the left and then add some Red Iron Oxide and Rutile. The upper left corners of each tile were double dipped. The cups have the first glaze in the lineup poured inside and the last glaze brushed on the outside.

All percentages should be regarded as approximations. I’m pretty sure my measuring was accurate but I was working with small 200g batches.

glossy clear liner 2

glossy clear liner 2

Group 2 has the Glossy Clear Liner base glaze plus varying amounts of Cobalt Carbonate, Rutile and Copper Carbonate.

glossy clear liner 3

glossy clear liner 3

Group 3 has varying amounts of Cobalt Carbonate, Rutile and Red Iron Oxide.

After this first glaze mixing adventure I feel like I learned a lot. It was interesting to see the results but I feel like I learned how to make the process a lot more efficient. I recently mixed some more test batches and it seemed to go a little quicker. I also used larger increments when adding colorants. This first batch changed the colorant by 1 or 2% each time which doesn’t produce much difference from glaze to glaze. Now I hope to run some tests on my results and pick out a few to concentrate on. I’ll have to order some more materials to make some bigger batches.

I’ll try to post the results of the glaze fire that I just finished soon.

Surface Class Update – 3 Weeks In

I just finished the third week of class at the Goshen Clay Guild. It has been great so far. I’ve met a lot of cool people and learned a few things. We have had one class with each of the three teachers so far.

texture notes

texture notes

First, Eric Kaufmann (I confess, I spelled his name wrong twice before looking it up) gave us an introduction to the class and talked about crystalline glazes. Then Cindy Cooper subbed for Bob Smoker and gave us a lot of demonstrations and ideas for texture. Last night Justin Rothshank talked about decals. In between demos and instruction, and during lab nights on Thursdays, we get a lot of time to throw on the wheel or work on whatever we like.

pottery shelf so far

pottery shelf so far

I’ve been working with the B-Mix that Eric uses and trying to get used to it. I’ve made little test pieces and catch basins for the crystalline glazes. I can’t wait to learn more about the glazing and firing. I’ve already looked up some ^6 crystalline recipes. The B-Mix has taken some getting used to. It is a lot smoother than the stoneware I’m used to but I get nervous to push it too far.

decal notes

decal notes

The decals we are going to be using are printed with black and white toner from an HP laser printer. The iron in the print turns a sepia/brown when it is fired. There are also color decals that you can order but they are a lot more expensive to get custom images made. Apparently a little site called ebay is a pretty good resource for finding them though. Maybe I’ll have to take a look and see what’s available. My notes are to the left. Good luck reading them… I’m not even sure I can read them! I was scribbling like mad. So furiously that I broke out into a sweat. For a moment I thought I might have to sit down, but then a girl passed out (!) and we took a break and got some fans. Don’t worry, she was okay after waking up and drinking some water. And I was okay too…

cups with decals

cups with decals

Here are a few cups with decals. The third one from the left was a crystalline piece by Eric. Justin applied some plant decals and refired it to see if it would work without ruining the crystals. Looks good to me! Second from the left is a color decal. The other two are black and white decals. Justin printed out a page of decals for us if we had images ready. I just used some of the images that I used to order my rubber stamps for some of my other projects.

Check back in a few weeks and I should have another update. Happy 4th of July!

The Dream is Over

Okay, not really over. Just put on hold for a while. It’s official: I’ll be staying at my teaching job for a few more years.

[Read more…]

May 2012 Glaze Fire Results

It’s about time! I’m finally getting results of the last glaze fire uploaded. I fired these at the end of May just in time to take a few pieces to school for an End of School Year sale.

Everything is Warm Brown Stoneware fired to cone 6 in oxidation.

The firing went pretty well. I only have to re-fire one or two pieces due to minor glaze defects. The Sapphire Blue glaze was still a little thin. I made a few more pendants and tried some different shapes and sizes. About half were made of the Warm Brown Stoneware and the rest were Buff Stoneware with Grog which is lighter clay with dark specks. I also made some little sticks of clay with my website address stamped on them. I can give these away like little business cards or add them to orders or scatter them across the countryside.

Not pictured are two yarn bowls and probably another piece or two. The yarn bowls warped a bunch but my grandma still liked them and took them home with her. There was a third but it broke while I was glazing it. I think the walls were a little too thin for yarn bowls. The other yarn bowls I’ve made had thicker walls and didn’t break during glazing or warp much, if at all.

Soon some of these items will be available on Etsy! My store isn’t up yet but I’m in the middle of writing descriptions and getting images ready. When it’s ready you should be able to find it here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtByFuzzy.

In other news, I’ve been busy in the clay studio. I’m also ready to start my class at the clay artists guild! I’ll try to post some of the things that I learn.