Annie Mackin

Callie Beller Diesel, by an inclusion clay, do you mean add a red stain to the clay that I have already coloured, like Dark Red (has a #1 on the Mason Stain Reference Guide (Min, thanks)? I think that is what you mean. I have some Mason Stain Dark Red, so I will add this to my coloured clay that contains red pigment and see how the colours fire. I think I will fire at Cone 6 or Cone 7 and see what happens. I really appreciate all the advise I've gotten here on the Forum. I am very grateful. If I can come back to this post, I'll let you know how my colours turn out.

Min, Hyn, and Bill, thank you for your responses and advice. Min, thank you for the link. It will be helpful in many areas as I learn more about ceramics. To answer your question, I used, for example, Mason Stain Deep Crimson at 10% (50g in 500g of wet high fire porcelain clay). It turned out a medium grey. It's a steep learning curve for me! I now see that the Mason Stain label says 1260°C maximum. I fired at cone 10, so I exceeded that temperature. True for all the other stains in my sample discs - fired at cone 10 , and any red pigment was lost. I am hoping to save my small blocks of coloured porcelain clay (they make up a pug of clay and hours of wedging!) that I make my beads out of. And that's why I wondered if I could use this same coloured high-fire porcelain clay and fire it at cone 6 or cone 7 instead of cone 10 and still end up with beads that are hard enough not to chip. Hyn, you mention frit. This seems like an alternative to firing at a lower cone temperature. I looked on a few sites that sell frit and it seems it's mostly added to glazes. Can I add this to my porcelain clay body? Have you done this? If so, can you give me a little more guidance on using frit? I think if lowering the cone temperature is practical, it would be the easiest solution to keeping my colours true?

Can I use a high-fire cone 10 porcelain clay and fire it at cone 6 or cone 7 - mid-range? Will it have matured enough to be strong and fairly non-porous? I am new to this. I am learning to make coloured porcelain clay beads. I mixed various colours of Mason Stains into my porcelain to create small coloured blocks to work with. My first full fire at cone 10 negated any colour that had red pigment in it! I have coloured most of my pug of porcelain and would like to be able to use it without losing the red pigment in the colours. Any suggestions?