Glaze Honestly: What's Worked, and Where I'm Out of My Depth
Okay, so your piece is bone dry, or it's headed there, and now we have to talk about glaze.
I'll be honest with you up front, because I always am: glaze chemistry is a mystery to me. I don't know why a glaze that's glossy blue on one clay body goes matte gray on another. I don't know the oxide science, the melting points, any of it. I know what's worked for me and what's cracked, crawled, or run all over somebody's kiln shelf, and that's what I can actually teach you. If you want the chemistry, there are people who can give it to you, and I'll point you their direction. I'm not one of them.
What I can give you is the practical stuff. Here's what actually gets you through glazing a piece at home.
Start with bisque, and start clean
Your piece needs to go through a bisque fire before it ever sees glaze. That's the studio's job, not yours, same as the final firing. Once it comes back to you bisqued, it's porous and a little rough, like a very dry sponge. That's exactly what you want. Glaze needs something to grab onto.
Before you glaze, wipe the piece down with a slightly damp sponge. Bisque ware picks up dust sitting on a shelf, and dust under glaze can cause little pinholes or rough spots. Takes thirty seconds. Do it anyway.
Glaze less than you think
This is one of my actual opinions, and I'll say it every time I teach this lesson: beginners over-decorate. You've got a nice piece, you're excited, and the instinct is to cover every square inch in your favorite color, maybe two colors, maybe three if you're feeling bold. Don't.
Restraint reads as intention. A piece with one confident glaze choice, applied evenly, looks like you meant it. A piece with four glazes fighting each other looks like you couldn't decide. If you're not sure, do less than your gut says. You can always glaze it again next time. You can't un-glaze it once it's fired.
Application, the boring practical version
Dip if you can, because dipping is the most even method and the easiest to control. If you're brushing, do at least two coats, letting the first go from wet-shiny to matte-dry before the second. Brushing in one thick coat almost always gives you streaks or drips.
Wipe glaze off the bottom of your piece and about a half inch up the sides before it goes in the kiln. This one isn't optional. Glaze runs when it melts, and if there's glaze on the foot, your piece will weld itself to the kiln shelf. I have seen this happen to someone else's piece and it is not a fun conversation for anyone.
Let the glaze dry fully before it's handled or stacked near other pieces. Wet glaze smudges if you look at it wrong.
Where I'm actually out of my depth
I can tell you a green glaze I like turns muddy over a certain clay body. I can tell you a glaze that crawls if you put it on too thick. What I can't tell you is why, chemically, any of that happens, and I'm not going to fake my way through an explanation that sounds smart but is actually just guessing. If a glaze does something weird and you want to understand the mechanism, ask the studio staff or look for a glaze chemistry class. That's a real gap in what I know, and pretending otherwise wouldn't help you.
What I can tell you, honestly, is which of my own glazed pieces I'm proud of and which ones taught me something the hard way. Most of what I know about glaze came from doing it wrong first.
The ugliest, most honest piece I've glazed is one I made last year during a two a.m. feeding with Maddox, back when he was brand new and I was too wired to sleep even though I was exhausted. I wasn't thinking straight. I grabbed a glaze I'd never tried, put it on thicker than I should have in some spots and barely at all in others, and didn't think twice about it because I genuinely didn't have the bandwidth to overthink anything at two in the morning. It came out uneven, a little blotchy, not at all what a glaze demo photo would look like. I love it. It sits on my windowsill now, next to the cracked box from years ago. Sometimes the pieces you didn't have the energy to fuss over turn out more honest than the ones you worked hardest on.
That's not a technique. It's just true, and worth knowing before you spend an hour agonizing over glaze placement on a piece that would look fine either way.
Before next time
Get your piece clean and dust-free, pick one glaze you actually like instead of three you're unsure about, and remember to wipe that foot before it goes anywhere near a kiln shelf.
~erin