STEP 2

Illustrated is step 2 in moving forward on the Hagi style white with my saffron iron glaze over and so far so good. As I previously mentioned this started as a "no expectations" glaze test and I am rather pleased with the results thus far. From this recent glaze firing I pulled out two teabowls and a covered jar and to my eye, the other teabowl is even better than this one (more to follow). The base glaze for this iron glaze is one that I have fine tuned and works with a wide array of alterations and colorants though the ilmenite and rutile additions kind of crashed and burned. Though the glaze was put on as a rather even coat around the surface, parts of the bowl show a deep saffron color and almost obscure the clay texture underneath while the remainder of the pot shows saffron streaking and running making for a rather intriguing and animated surface. As I have said, with no real expectations and not enough experience with the glaze combinations yet, the results have been fine by me and now I am looking at what are the possibilities for its use among different forms and different clay bodies. The bottom line is that more testing is needed and the expectation threshold is raising with each and every firing.