Glazing

Some of the glazes used in my last session

One of the things that I do enjoy is playing around with my glazes; experimenting, layering - and generally making a mess - to see what happens!

I have often referred to ceramics as 'a sweetie shop full of possibilities and potential'; well, the glazing is the icing on top of the bun and the fancy box and bow all rolled into one!

However, I have also been known to call it "painting colour-blind with mud" and that is very true too!

My glaze ingredients shelves

 I mix all of my own glazes and they all start life as a combination of mostly white powders. Firing mostly in the Cone 6 range (around 1200 degrees C) most of them include refined or processed rock and mineral ingredients such as potash feldspar, barium carbonate or nepheline syenite, as well as china clay, flint or quartz. There are usually other ingredients too depending on the effect that I want to achieve, and then I create the actual colour using oxides.

So, after weighing, mixing, sieving and labelling, I am left with a mixture that is usually about the thickness of single cream - and which bears no relationship at all to it's finished colour or effect!

The mixed glazes - the colours that you see are nothing like the finished effects

For example, a glaze that it brown when 'raw' could be blue when it is fired. Some of the cream coloured mixtures could be green, they could be blue, they could be white, they could be clear.... The three black mixtures shown above are a good example; One is actually a glossy black glaze, another is a gold lustre while the third creates a purplish blue!

And then there is the combination effect! A glaze that is one colour on it's own, can change completely in combination with another ingredient or glaze containing that ingredient. A good example is a glaze containing chrome; on it's own it usually makes green, but add tin or zinc and it turns pink. Or a purple that turns brown, or a blue that turns purple.... And even a simple addition of a clear glaze can make a huge difference.

A glaze test tile showing the effects of overlayering

This was a test tile that I made for a new glaze mix I wanted to try. I added eight different colouring oxide combinations and painted a sample of each onto the tile and then I painted a line of a glossy clear glaze over a third of each sample and a line of matt clear glaze over another third, creating the results you can see.

... so when you think that I have a range of around 50 glazes that I already use - and I keep trying more all the time - the decorative possibilities are endless!

The only problems are trying to remember how each glaze interacts with the others, will it bubble or go glossy, will it change the colour, which order they need to be layered up in, how thickly, whether they will be opaque or transparent, how sensitive they are to kiln position and temperature......

Oh - and all the washing up again afterwards!

Ted Hughes and Remains of Elmet

I first came across the Elmet series of poems by Ted Hughes when I was writing my BA Fine Art dissertation on 'Representation of the South Pennines' and they immediately struck a chord, echoing many of the themes that I was already pursuing in my own studio practice; the landscape, people and villages of the area and the sense of steady decline in the old industries. He was writing as someone born into the Pennine community of nearby Todmorden; I was seeing the area with the eyes of an 'incomer' - albeit of 25 years duration.

The original book was illustrated by Fay Godwin's photographs and although I thought them interesting, I found different images coming into my mind as I read the poems.
This year I have finally begun a project that I fleetingly considered then, and have been exploring my own ceramic interpretations. I hope that you will find them interesting.


Keith Sagar has written an excellent article on Ted Hughes and the Calder Valley which describes his links with the area and the gestation and inspiration behind Remains of Elmet.

The text only version of Remains of Elmet is published by Faber & Faber

Not quite as planned

Sometimes things don't go as planned but can be quite interesting despite that. 

The Trance of Light
- it is approximately 40cm tall

It features screenprinted images of mills and
machinery, plus the textures of fabic, stone,
setts and cogs

This piece was made for theSDC at the Mall Exhibition and was based on the Ted Hughes poem, the Trance of Light which is about the decline of industry in the Pennines and a return to nature. 

As usual I was pushing the clay to its limits and this time it broke in the firing - but actually - for me it gives a further dimension to the theme...

At the Mall Galleries

A busy start - this was the opening morning in the main gallery

One of the best things that I did at the time of my graduation from Bradford College was to sign up for the assessment for Licentiate Membership of the Society of Designer Craftsmen.

It was nerve racking at the time as it involved an in depth interview with one of the Fellows of the society, Pete Moss, that was both challenging and stimulating - and then the nervous wait to see if I had been accepted. When the letter came to say that not only had I been, but that mine was an Award with Merit which entitled me to show at their annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London, I was over the moon - and then scared out of my wits at the same time! Three years on and I have just come back from the set up and launch of this years event but for the second year as part of the organising team! (My own fault for letting on that I knew how to operate a computer!)

My display in the main gallery. The theme of
this years work is the 'Remains of Elmet' series of poems
by Ted Hughes about the Pennines and Calderdale

This year there are over 130 artists and craftspeople showing their work in the exhibition and shop within the show and the standard of the craftsmanship across the disciplines is amazing - as is the variety of the work! 

Almost a quarter of those showing this year are ceramicists and yet each is using different styles and techniques. If any of you are around in London, it is open until the 20th January and well worth a visit.

Impressions; Pennine Winter

The Pennines in winter can be stunning; the stark white snow delineated by the intricate patterns of the black walls with the bright blue of the sky and the deep blues in the shadows of the frosty walls.

Pennine Winter
This is a large, double sided standing piece made form porcelain paperclay that aims to convey some of the tones and textures of a Pennine Winter, particularly the field patternes outlined by the dry stone walls.

A second version of this theme, in this case using various different types of paperclay, screen prints, layered slips and glazes that aim to convey some of the impressions of winter in the Pennines.

Impressions: A Winter Walk
Another development on from the winter theme with a combination of textured layered slips, prints and glazes.

Cullingworth; A Self Portrait

One of the aspects that I wanted to explore was a representation of the village. The dilemma was how?
Then it struck me; to use the way that it represents itself - it's signage.

This is a large wall plaque made from stoneware paperclay that revisits the theme of the village of Cullingworth. Using the images and signs that the village itself presents to represent it, it also aims to echo the recurring shapes to be found; the arches of the mill archways, the viaduct and the doors and windows of the pubs, the shapes and angles of the roof’s and the tones and textures of the local stone.

A second version of the village theme with a more overlapped and layered feel.

Exploring Goitstock

Goitstock Woods is a local beauty spot with twisting paths amongst the trees of a steep, narrow valley following the path of Goitstock Beck which falls in a series of rills and waterfalls.

Goitstock 2.
This piece was a further development of the Goitstock woods theme, developing the feeling of enclosure by the trees which arch over the fast flowing stream and the prominent, twining root systems.

Goitstock 3.
Continuing to develop this theme, in this case I wanted to convey the feeling of the falling, twisting, bubbling beck surrounded by the trunks of the many trees. It is made from stoneware and porcelain paperclays.

Goitstock 4.
A third revisit of the Goitstock theme, in this case concentrating on the actual waterfall cascade using porcelain paperclay and volcanic glazes, mounted on a piece of Green Oak