Pottery, Photography, Design - Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz
Here’s a blast from the past. I was just about to upload some images of new glazes when I realized that I never posted my third batch of test tiles. I hadn’t even prepared the images!
It’s a good thing I’m on summer vacation…
So here are all 25 glaze variations. The base glazes are High Calcium Semi Matte 2 and Waterfall Brown from the book Mastering Cone 6 Glazes. Click the images to see a larger, more readable version.
Semi Matte 2, Cobalt Carb., RIO, Rutile
A few pieces from a glaze fire last month.
All Amaco Warm Brown Stoneware. Wheel Thrown. Glaze fired to ^6 in oxidation.
drying pots
I’ve been trying to get enough work scraped together for a bisque fire. Mostly weekend work. But soon that will change… It’s almost summer break! I’ve got  a nice platter thrown and trimmed that is drying slowly. I also have a handful of PBL mugs, a couple berry bowls, and a bunch of other random pieces.
PBL mugs
drying shelf
I don’t think I have enough for a full bisque load but I plan to try some more decals. Hopefully I can fill in the empty spaces with those. I’m hoping to bisque fire by Tuesday or Wednesday. But there’s a chance that I might make a few more things if I have too much space to fill. We’ll see what happens.
I recently tested decals on my current lineup of glazes. The decals came from decalpaper.com. The test tiles were made from Amaco’s Warm Brown Stoneware, bisque fired and then each dipped in one of my current glazes. After glaze firing each tile to ^6 I applied one of the water slide decals and put the tiles through another bisque fire. The images show the tiles just after I applied the decals and then after the decals were fired on.
cooled soy wax in the crock-pot
I finally got to try the soy wax in the Crock Pot idea that I mentioned in another post. After unloading the bisque kiln and washing off the pots I was ready to wax the bottoms. Previously, this required getting out the wax resist and sponging or brushing it on each pot. This worked well but it was time consuming. While taking a class at the Goshen Clay Guild I noticed that they had an electric skillet which was used to melt paraffin wax which pots were dipped into. Even though it produced an odor and required more caution, it cut down on the time required to wax the bottoms. Then as I was researching this idea further, I read on the Ceramic Arts Daily Forum that some potters use soy wax and crock pots. So I decided to give it a try.