Art by Fuzzy

Pottery, Photography, Design - Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz

Happy New Year!

Or Happy… Year? I guess  2013 isn’t exactly “new” since a month has already come and gone. Happy Day After Groundhog Day? Happy Super Sunday!

And it has been far too long since I’ve even glanced at this poor blog. So I’ve decided to give your retinas a treat and share some work that I finished last year. The first pots with my new brown and “white” glazes!

tan mixing bowl

tan mixing bowl

The mixing bowl. I really like the form. I think it will become my standard mixing bowl shape where I can explore some surface decoration. I’ll try to post more about what went “wrong” later. The glaze didn’t turn out as white as expected.

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Glaze Tests – Early Summer 2012

Finally…

I finally have some glaze test results from early summer. I decided if I was going to share them I may as well go all out and make them useful for anyone else that might be testing ^6 glazes in oxidation. If you click one of the six images below you should see the full-size, more readable images.

All base glazes are from the fabulous book: Mastering Cone 6 Glazes (affiliate link).

High Calcium Semimatte Base 2

I’m interested in developing some semi-matte glazes to add a little surface variety to my work. Here are two groups of test tiles with the High Calcium Semimatte 2 from Mastering Cone 6 Glazes (pg. 89).

High Calcium Semimatte 2 Red Iron Oxide and Rutile

High Calcium Semimatte 2 Red Iron Oxide and Rutile

High Calcium Semimatte 2 Rutile and Red Iron Oxide

High Calcium Semimatte 2 Rutile and Red Iron Oxide

I was really impressed with these two groups of glazes. I plan to use at least a few of these in the future after some more testing. I have already tested this base glaze with some more colorant combinations. It should be noted that the first tile in the bottom image is the “Bone” glaze from the book and the third tile is “Raw Sienna” both mentioned on page 90.

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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.

Logo Mugs

I recently glaze fired a bunch of drinking vesels.  Mostly mugs and cups with some sort of logo emblazoned across at least one side of each. Overall a solid firing with a few spectacular pieces.  All wheel-thrown stoneware fired to cone 6.

Little Chargers

A majority of the vessels were of the “Little Charger” variety. I had some orders from before Christmas and I made a few extra mugs and a couple handle-less cups/pencil holders.

(Big?) Chargers

A staff member or two suggested that I make some mugs with the charger-riding-a-horse logo that the middle and high schools use. I ordered a stamp and tried it on a few different forms with a couple different glaze combinations.

PBL and Boberosa Gun Dogs

This glaze firing was the beta test for a few new logos. Partners Bulk Logistics is a fantastic trucking company and the fine folks at Boberosa Gun Dogs train and board hunting dogs.

Notes

  • The Coyote Glaze “Really Red” is appropriately named.
  • I wish Coyote made a “Really Orange” which was just as bright.
  • Brushing on glaze is STILL a pain compared to dipping and pouring.
  • My favorite logos resulted from applying glaze to the impressed logo lines and then wiping off the excess glaze to reveal bare clay around the logo.
  • Going from Red Gloss (more of a dull, cool red) to Really Red (brighter and warmer) was quite a jump. I love the Really Red but I think it overpowers the Sapphire Blue glaze which it is usually paired with. Maybe I’ll have to find a brighter blue glaze.
  • Glazes used:
  • Coyote – Really Red, Sapphire Blue, Eggshell, Alabaster Satin, Pam’s Blue, Saturated Iron, Orange, Red Gold
  • Amaco – Red Gloss, Frosted Turquoise (not pictured)
  • Mayco – Stoneware Copper Wash, Stoneware Iron Wash (referred to as “stains” in the descriptions)

There were a few non-logo items in the glaze fire. I’ll try to put up a short post with these items including mugs, tumblers and yarn bowls.

Raw Materials for Glazes

Recently I’ve been preparing to mix my own glazes.  I started stockpiling chemicals and raw materials last summer when a Laguna distributor in Michigan had a sale.  Over Christmas I got a few books about glazes including Mastering Cone 6 Glazes and The Complete Guide to High-Fire Glazes.  I looked through the recipes in these books and some that I found on the internet and drew up a list of raw materials that I needed to start testing recipes.  Then I did some price checking for some online clay and chemical suppliers.  (The pottery supply search helped!) [Read more…]