Trying out new glazes!
We can't stop thinking about the pottery we'll all be making once The Pottery Hut is open for business. So while the legal processes trundle on, we have been trying out a new stoneware clay, and some new glazes. We love the earthy richness of high-fired stoneware glazes, but feel it will be responsible to fire at slightly lower temperatures. Over the last twenty years, firing at about 1200 degrees C, rather than 1280 degrees C or higher for traditional stoneware, has become quite widespread. It saves on electricity, and wear and tear on a kiln, so it is definitely the way to go.
Creative effects
The exciting thing about stoneware glazes, even at 1200 degrees, is that they can give different effects when layered up. These two mugs, ready for a coffee break in The Pottery Hut - day dreaming again! - are glazed with just three glazes. The white, when applied over the brown or the green, gives beautiful mottled effects. You can imagine the glazes melting and bubbling in the red hot kiln: the darker glaze underneath erupts through the more opaque white layer. The dramatic pattern is caught and fixed as everything cools down.
This bowl was made on the wheel with our new toasty clay; it throws well, and fires a rich golden colour. It is glazed with the green and brown glazes, over lapped both ways. Looking great in the late summer sun. Happy with this one.
We will stock a range of paint on glazes which you will be able to purchase, as well as a range of dipping glazes, oxides, slips and underglaze colours for everyone.
A parade of test pots. We've found a good reliable transparent glaze which will show off painted or slip designs. Here it shows the toasty clay with some hasty underglaze test flowers, but will also work beautifully on white or coloured slip. On the left, a big splodge of copper oxide doing its thing in another white glaze which is a real contender.
We'll keep in touch
It is not possible to say exactly when we will be able to welcome you to The Pottery Hut for your first session, but work is going on in the background. Most of it not as fun as making test pots, or photographing them in the garden!
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Jane and Becky
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