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Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Miriam's Cone 10 Glaze: a variation on Val Cushing's Wild Wonder




Gerstley Borate         48
Talc                    22
Titanium Dioxide        14
Zinc Oxide              10
Lithium Carbonate       6
Black Copper Oxide      2

To make the glaze on this tile, I added 2% black copper oxide to a recipe from Val Cushing’s Handbook.  Cushing recommends this glaze for reduction firings, but after testing it with a variety of colorants, I found all of the results more interesting in oxidation.  The gerstley borate and titanium dioxide in this glaze give it a highly active surface, with streaks of pink and cream.  The addition of black copper oxide gives it a bit of a metallic sheen, and adds greens and grays.  This glaze is quite runny, but it can be stabilized by reducing the gerstley borate to 43% and adding 5% silica.  This will make the glaze less drippy, but will also result in a slight loss of texture.

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