Experiments in paint and glaze

Firing this weekend! It's been a while as I've just not produced enough work over the past few months (see previous post). However, I do now have enough work to fill the kiln and so feel full of anticipation as to what surprises I'm going to have in a few days time. I say surprises because I've tried a few experiments with the decorations. I've included pictures below of the glaze and oxide decorations before the firing, and I hope to show them after firing too. I tried using lots of wax on the designs as well as spattering cold wax and then adding oxides over the top. On the flower design I then scraped away the oxide carefully trying not to remove any of the galze beneath. You can actually see on the flower pot a patch where some of the glaze beneath did flake off - we'll see in the finished pot if this makes a huge impact on the final effect. The salt pig is my first attempt at one of these. I've had a few friends saying that they want one having seen this, so hopefully it'll fire well.

I've also tried to get a bit of painting done recently. I do love apinting, but the limiting factor is always good lighting. I have to paint in daylight to get the colours right. Painting under artificial light, even with daylight bulbs , is never ideal. Anyway I've added some photos of the paintings, so you can comment (bear in mond the photos were also taken under artificial lighting and so tend to be a bit yellow.

Hope you enjoy the work!




(flower design in wax - oxide spattered then scraped back to glaze - see theglaze falked off)