Fred Parker on sat 3 nov 07
Bruce Davis:
I have put Bright Sky Blue from John and Ron's book to good use for awhile
now. In the process, I found some really frustrating/interesting things
about it. You might be interested:
First, application thickness is important, especially if you like the rich
iron reds it can produce in the thinner areas as I do. I generally spray
it, and make it a point to feather out to a thinner layer where I want it
to transition into the iron reds.
Second, I have noticed a subtle but critical change with different firing
approaches. I use an older manual kiln without really precise control,
but even there I have been able to change the resulting blue over a fairly
wide range. For me, a normal soak of a half hour or more at or near
1206C, followed by a slow downfire typically yields a more "opacified"
light blue -- almost what some would call "baby blue." Frankly, I don't
like it very much.
However, a firing to 1206C followed by a brief (15 minute) soak and a
rapid cooldown (with my airy old kiln this means simply shutting it down)
yields a much deeper, richer blue which I really like. The two different
results could be described as "milky" (long soak, slow cool) or "cold and
clear (short soak, fast cool). See
for examples. The
last mug on the third row from bottom is the short soak, fast cool
approach. The middle mug on the bottom row is the long soak, slow cool
result.
The two mugs are Standard 112, bisqued to ^06.
Regards,
Fred Parker
On Fri, 2 Nov 2007 06:44:47 EDT, Bruce Davis wrote:
>I made up a batch of Mastering Cone Six Gloss #1 with Bright Sky Blue
>colorants as recommended in the book. With no time to do test tiles, I
went ahead
>and dipped a whole kiln load an fired them. Because of too much water,
a
>lot of the items were washed out looking after I fired them. In the
past, I
>had used spray starch but didn't have much success. After searching the
>archives I found Janet Price's recommendation to use Elmer's Glue. I
adjusted the
>water and re-dipped and fired. Good results. Most now look like they
were
>supposed to while others look like a high quality floating blue.......
>
>Thanks to all who contribute to Clay Art--especially in this case Janet.
>
>
>
>Best regards,
>
>Bruce Davis, Mud Run Pottery
>Gulfport MS
>_http://bdavis6129.blogspot.com/_ (http://bdavis6129.blogspot.com/)
>bdavis6129@aol.com
>
>
>
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