I emailed a
friend a while back asking if he may have a particular formula that I am
looking for. He emailed back with a suggestion that I do a line blend with
several materials, though I had already gone through that exercise, it got me
to thinking about another type of line blend. Back at CSU, I had come up with a
nice alternative to an Albany slip glaze by blending two existing glazes in a
60/40 ratio. The results were as good as it was going to get in a post-Albany
environment. Using the same principle, I took 5 existing glazes that I am using
and "blended" them together in 80/20, 50/50 and 20/80 percentage
ratios. The results, though just a jumping off point, came out surprisingly
well. In all, I came up with at least 3 new glazes worth further trials. I am
sure to try different blends as part of my normal testing from now on and see
what else shows up.
Illustrated is
a 60/40 blend of the alkaline clear with
my tetsu-yu glaze, which has become a super rich, iron yellow glaze. I am
tentatively calling it Chinese mustard, after the glaze, not the condiment. The
glaze needs some more work and is a bit prone to run, but it makes for a rather
nice surface on the right pot. Where pooled inside the yunomi, the glaze breaks
on the ridges of the finger swirl, standing
up in contrast to the smooth iron yellow.
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