I started out with some old porcelain pieces I had around, made with Hagi porcelain. It's a nice porcelain to handle. The test tiles I did with it all came out better than with the cone 5/6 stoneware, for some reasons.
One of my favorite glazes so far is this red yellow speckle glaze I picked up in Book of Glazes from Emmanuel Cooper. Absolutely stunning, with reddish/brown crystals on a light yellow satin background.
Another glaze I was excited to use was a manganese crystal glaze that I adapted from a cone 10 glaze, using Digitalfire Insight software. I made two variations and they both turned out like the cone 10 glaze we use in reduction gas firing at Clay Associates studio. The tiny crystals create a deep shiny surface with a dark chocolate hue. Definitely a keeper !
The top and inside of the floral arrangement vase consist of a layer of a clear red/black glaze followed by a layer of a rutile glaze called broken pearl to give an opalescent tint to the piece. You can see that the glaze picked up a bit of iron by the blue breaks on the inside.
The clear red/black glaze is more of a clear honey color, as seen in the bowl set. Very consistent glaze. When thick it becomes a darker brown with light gold specks. Here the bowls were sprayed with a medium application. I added a medium spray of the spearmint glaze from Roy's Mastering Cone 6 Glazes book, mostly concentrated around the rim. The effect is more muted than I envisioned. I can try dipping the rim next time.
 |
| 7" high porcelain bud vase; electric, cone 6; red speckle yellow glaze |
 |
| 6" high porcelain wide rim vase; electric, cone 6; red speckle yellow glaze |
 |
| 4.5" high x 7" wide porcelain floral vase; electric, cone 6; clear red/black glaze, broken pearl glaze, manganese crystal glaze |
 |
| 4.5" high x 7.5" wide porcelain bowl set; electric, cone 6; clear red/black glaze, spearmint glaze |
