Clear for use over brown clay

[Venicemud]

I need help from you experienced heads. I usually use white stoneware and fire to cone 6 but have decided to try out some ideas using brown clay (Electric Brown from Laguna) - at the same temperature. I would like a clear glaze which results in a nice rich color from the underlying clay, but a friend was showing me a pot he had just finished yesterday using a different brown clay. Where the pot was not glazed (footring) the color was a lovely lively red/brown but where it had been covered with glaze it was a dull muddy brown. The glaze he used was a commercial glaze that he had purchased so I have no information on its composition. Are there particular ingredients that I should be sure to include to get the look I want? ingredients to avoid? Does anyone have a cone 6 recipe they have had success with? Help please!

[neilestrick]

In my experience, whenever you put a clear over a brown clay it will not be as dark and rich as the foot. You could always just leave the clay unglazed....

[mregecko]

I'm going to echo Neil's sentiments here... I work almost exclusively in buff stonewares, and I pretty much consider "clear" as an off-limits glaze to me because I don't like the look of clears over raw stoneware. Much like celadons, they tend to come out muddy brownish-green colors.

 

That's not to say that you can't make something beautiful with a clear glaze over a buff stoneware!! But you have to go in expecting that final product.

 

Hope this helps :-)

[Diane Puckett]

What about making a terra sig of that clay and using it on the outside of the piece?

[weeble]

Electric brown is a very nice clay, but it tends to go grey with a clear glaze (I usually use Laguna's Moroccan Sand Clear Bright.) A terra sig made with that clay tends to be a nice milk chocolate brown, lighter than the actual clay body. I find the best thing to do with Electric Brown is just burnish it and let it go at that. Something you could try would be use a nice transparent brown - Laguna's Moroccan Sand Turkish Amber should give you a nice glossy dark brown very close to the clay body color, but DO A TEST to see how much of the greyness shows, its been way too long since I tried it out! I use that glaze a lot over a B-mix and love the transparency. Its one of the glazes I used on my avatar pot.

[Claypple]

In my experience, whenever you put a clear over a brown clay it will not be as dark and rich as the foot. You could always just leave the clay unglazed....

 

 

I just did a test glazing with a clear commercial glaze on brown stoneware and it looks really great!

I mean the color of the clay became more prominent, bright. And it is not matt at all! Now the foot looks dull.

I used Liquid Ceramic Glaze from Nasco.

The only "BUT": It is a low fire glaze, so I glazed it at ^06 over the bisqued tile.

It is definitely too low the temperature for the stoneware clay.

What would be the solution for that? Maybe run it through the kiln at ^5, e.g. to mature, then do the low ^ glazing?

[neilestrick]

Why not jut do a cone 5 glaze?

[Claypple]

Why not jut do a cone 5 glaze?

 

 

Because the clear glaze goes matt at ^5!

As you said earlier (see above): "whenever you put a clear over a brown clay it will not be as dark and rich as the foot"

which happens only at the high cones.

[AtomicAxe]

The iron in the clay body that is exposed fluxes and oxidizes with the atmosphere in the kiln. That is why the feet of red clay bodies look awesome compared to the clear glazed surface. if you need something just to flux the surface a little, just put an extremely thin coat of gerstly or neph sy on the body, it will be a different color, but a thin thin coat should be just enough to bring out some richness in the body (possibly some mottling from the grog/sand in the clay) and get you a better effect than a glaze that is thicker and does not let the clay body oxidize properly.

 

could also rub iron oxide on the body as well, since it will act as a flux in the thicker parts so it will provide some varation in color in the body.