I want to produce a variety of techniques to create texture either with the clay itself or from the glaze. Wendy Lawrence's work inspires me but isn't necessarily completely right for my work, the colours are too bright and artificial looking plus I don't want to cover my entire work with the volcanic glaze. I spoke to Wendy a few years ago about her technique and she advised experimenting with silicon carbide in the glaze or in slip.
On www.glazey.org I found six recipes, four with very similar base ingredients but various proportions of silicon carbide. So decided to do the Linda Bloomfield P127 (143217) recipe with 0.3g, 1g and 2g of silicon carbide plus recipes Strontium Crate Slip (66516) and Selsor Red Silicon Carbide (36619).
Linda Bloomfield Tests:
Strontium Crate Slip and Selsor Red Silicon Carbide Tests.
Slip Tests:
Linda Bloomfield results were satin in appearance. The holes enlarged with greater amounts of silicon carbide in the recipe. The application of oxide at the time of applying the glaze prohibited the production of holes which gave important learning. Strontium Crate Slip produced a flat glossy appearance which I think has been incorrectly categorised on the website. Selsor Red Silicon Carbide produced a dry powdery matt finish with a few holes. The slip tests did not produce holes which could be due to the low temperature so will see how the slip reacts to a stoneware firing.
Once the test tiles had been fired I applied the glazes to bigger test tiles which included a more relevant finish, ie included black slip, texture and fired clay inclusions. This will help me assess how to apply the finishes without it looking like a patchwork experiement. I have been overwhelmed by the results.
Other test pieces have been disappointing but have been big learning opportunities as it has shown how many layers of glaze I need to put onto pieces to make them effective. They have also showed the importance of including slip between the clay body and the glaze application to bring depth to my work.
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