Thursday 11 February 2016

Glaze tests with wire

I have been experimenting incorporating wire into and onto glazes. 

Loosely wrapping the wire around the already glazed object I was curious to see what would happen to the wire. Would it melt into the glaze? Or would it sit on top of the glaze? Would it colour the glaze?

Majolica with copper and steel wire test.
Cone 04

The test results were exciting and unexpected. The copper wire bleached into the glaze, creating a green tinge with a smooth surface, and the steel wire became rough and textured like sand paper. 


Shino reduction glaze with copper wire
Cone 6
and gold lustre

The results were completely different when fired in a hotter kiln (Cone 6) with a reduction atmosphere. The copper completely melted and turned black. 

I was also interested to see what would happen if I then applied a gold lustre glaze on top of this effect. Gold lustre fires at a very low temperature (Cone 022) which meant that it didn't affect the previous results from the reduction firing. 

I can't wait to try these effects on bigger pieces of ceramics!

1 comment:

  1. Copper is known to burn black and give off a green tinge, so should not be unexpected, but perhaps you could take this technique further

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