I have a piece I want to glaze to look a bit like a reptile/dino egg
But I’m not sure what glazes I should use. Do we have anything or any glaze at the space I could make this kind of off white crackle with? If not, any suggestions of what to buy? Preferably something that could be bought in not huge quantities. I’m thinking more white than yellow unlike the egg photo, more suggesting egg than actual replica look.
tia
I’d recommend that you go down to Trinity and talk to them. The glazes we’ve got are smooth, and either matte or shiny. I’ve seen crackle glazes, but we don’t have any.
If you get a chance to talk to Anita @meanbaby, she could give you some recommendations of what to buy.
You might want to consider a glaze that doesn’t just crackle, but that has a crawl to give more 3d texture. I have some old Arroyo Soft White that I can bring up for you to run a glaze test tile with if you are interested.
Sure that would be great. Do I need to make a tile first or do we keep a supply?
If I were searching glazes online would I search ‘crawl’ or is there another term for it?
Arroya has an amazing thick cobblestone Satan look over a non moving glaze or strokes & Coates low fired
Over a mid fire glaze it flattens out and fires shnny and has a cool look see my last midfire below 2 Coates ancient jasper 2 Coates Arroya.
I would suggest low fire crackle, then hit it with some brown shoe polish to bring out the cracks.
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Crawl is the technical term and usually something you try to avoid in glazing but it can be used to great effect if you can control it. Commercial glazes are going to refer to them as ‘crackle’ glazes, sometimes ‘alligator’, but that encompasses a wide variety of looks. You can google ‘Arroyo Soft White Glaze’ (and also Soft Black) to get some ideas. There are similar crackle glazes from other providers.
I’ve got some spare tiles I can set you up with. It’ll be a different clay (best practice is to use the same clay body) but it’s similar-ish and will cut down on your testing time. I’ll leave the glaze and a couple of tiles in your galley bin tomorrow.
My bin is rather… Full. But I do have a shelf next to the vacuum former. Knee high. It’s got a couple pieces to be glazed on it.
Thanks for the tips
You could put underglaze on in the cracks and wipe it off where you don’t want it. And then just put a clear on top ( if you want shiny) or nothing ( if you want the matte of the ceramics.
A good low-fire product is Mayco’s Cobblestone. You can paint a stroke and coat color underneath that shows where it cracks. I’ll be up there for a class on Thursday and could bring a jar for you to try if you’d like.
And, if you go with one of the low-fire options, make sure you put it on the Finished Greenware shelves with a note that it’s a low-fire glaze. While I think those were made of the Cone 6 clay, I’m willing to bet that the special crackle glazes don’t do well at Cone 6. Although, now that I think about it, it might not make any difference. The jar should let you know what temps you can fire it at. If the crackle develops at Cone 05 (or 04) and doesn’t melt, it doesn’t make any difference whether it’s fired at 05 or 6.
Arroya and cobblestone are purity much the same thing,? low fire it Satan shine with a crawl. mid fire it runs, flattens, and is shiny.
