Stephani Stephenson on tue 14 oct 03
Just reading the CLAYART digest, skimming posts about
glazes, glaze choices.
I had a breakthrough this week with a glaze.
I have been working with a glaze formula.
Started with a glaze called Barton Spod, 02 or 03
a test tile had a nice hard rich finish which I liked.
adapted it by trial and error for a year or so.
very slow, mostly guessing.
finally got it to make nice browns
kind of mottled, very consistent.
wouldn't make other colors
so, trial and error and reading, learned about colorants,
zinc and chrome, etc.
and a plethora of other interactions.
Then I took currie's workshop
which let me break the glaze down to the essentials and see
what
the possibilities were.
I saw color variation, and more importantly I began to
understand that I could see and
choose a glaze from the more 'stable' part of the grid.
Then , with glaze software I could break down the glaze,
look at the
chemical make up. and make choices.
One choice was to tilt the balance from calcium to magnesium
just to see what would happen.
With the software I could do this, and still try to keep
other
aspects of the glaze the same.
this one change gives me a whole other palette and also a
softer looking vellum surface.
these tools, the grid method and calculation software,
(though I admire Dave F for doing it by hand)
are helping 'educate ' my choices, make them conscious
choices, and also shortening the time it takes and work and
amount of material needed to realize the effects of these
choices....
It is still slow, but am finding that my own personal
palette is starting to bloom!
most of it from variations on a base.
Stephani Stephenson
steph@alchemiestudio.com
George Koller on tue 14 oct 03
Stephani,
Until I saw one of my own pieces come alive it was like
I was just following somebody big around Boston store=20
without a nickel in my pocket. Then crystals happened
to my art, on my tiles, with my colors, and suddenly I'm
like at a Harbor Freight outlet with a million bucks in my
pockets. Juices flowing, I'm involved again.
Was that the feeling you had also?
What I'm dying to know is if I am likely to enlist these
small crystals in my work. http://imagesonclay.com/examples.html
Will they really show up for work day after day even when=20
the word gets out? Or will a slight draft, humidity, a marginal=20
element, or a bad mood keep them home?
I guess I needed some pain, anxiety, fear, doubt -=20
everything else has been going a little too well.
george koller
sturgeon bay, wi - door county
northport, mi - leelanau county
two great places separated by 100 miles of great lake.
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