Glaze combinations and layering

[Rebekah Krieger]

I have been learning glaze chemistry, but an area that overwhelms me is layering/combining glazes. I don’t feel like my results look seamless. Perhaps it’s the types of glazes I am trying to put together. Is there a rule of thumb on what kinds generally look nice together or any resources? I feel like I could continue in a hamster wheel if I don’t get some direction on what to test, because at this point I’m testing everything. Thanks! 
I enjoy the combination of semi matte and glossy but I especially like it when I get surprise interesting surfaces with crystals etc.,

[neilestrick]

For me, contrast is key, whether it's matte and shiny or light and dark or opaque and transparent. Light over dark is generally more interesting than the opposite. You also need the glazes to be fluid enough that they move. Glazes with titanium in them tend to make for interesting layering. A over B does not look that same as B over A, so test every combination.

[Pres]

I also like to layer glazes, and often will do a dip with two contrasting colors. However, I believe that contrasting color also means contrasting values, one stronger than the other. At the same time,

I often spray colors on over the dipped layers to mute the line between the dipped colors. Rutile green or blue from Van Gilders glaze recipes works well for this.  As the transparent glaze uses rutile(containing titanium oxide and trace elements) causing interesting breaks in texture over the other glazes as @neilestrickhas already alluded to.

Running test tiles or small test pieces like shot glass vessels really help to pin point combinations. At the same time if using 3 colors it is really important to understand a little about color theory in choosing your glaze colors.

best,

Pres

[Bill Kielb]

22 hours ago, Rebekah Krieger said:

I have been learning glaze chemistry, but an area that overwhelms me is layering/combining glazes. I don’t feel like my results look seamless. Perhaps it’s the types of glazes I am trying to put together. Is there a rule of thumb on what kinds generally look nice together or any resources?

I think the observations above ( @neilestrick and @Pres )   are very pertinent.  Since you are learning glaze chemistry I will mention it’s really hard to analyze the mix chemistry but I have never really found a well working well melted combination non durable. Most folks just layer all combinations so lots of testing indeed is often the norm. As others have said contrasts have been the best for me often true matte and gloss.

I actually only feel good about designing one fluid glaze I made fluid with additional boron to overlay or be overlayed. So fluidity would be one of my only somewhat predictable rules of thumb, confirmed by testing of course. In the pictures below The test tile is actually the glaze designed to run but fire semi matte and the titanium usually crystallizes as a fluid matte so variations of violet and blue emerge from what often fires as a predominately cream colored glaze. Rim dipped blue over the base sort of produced the desired “designed” result. Interestingly, the designed glaze turned very golden and began to dry up when fired only one cone higher. Highly likely not the most durable composition also, so only intended for decoration.

Lots of testing, funny, even though it acted as designed, I never really liked the combo  in the end. So lots of trial to me is really key. To add I think the test tile was the eighth rendition of substituting titanium dioxide and a touch of iron for rutile to try and get some consistency with the base glaze and not have to rely on a particular batch of rutile. Test tile #8 looks like not enough iron for the intended color.   This probably took several more tests to get closer. Test, test, test!

Edited August 20, 2022 by Bill Kielb

[Roberta12]

Thanks to all for the good advice.  I had a customer ask for "drippy" glazes.  She was not in a hurry so I have spent a bit of time testing this summer.  What @neilestrick and @Bill Kielb mentioned about titanium seems to ring true with this summers test o fest.  One combo that was a knock out was Selsor Temmoku with Strontium Crystal Magic over.  Gorgeous.  Right now I am trying to find a purple that will meld (run, drip) with blue and green.  And with Blues and greens that I have or at least have confidence in.  

r.

[GEP]

@Rebekah Krieger, you said you are looking for “seamless” results. Can you expand on what you mean by that? When combining more than one glaze on a pot, there’s almost always going to be a seam. Though @Pres has a great suggestion about softening seams with sprayed glazes. Or, are you overlapping multiple glazes, where one glaze completely covers another glaze? In this case, the result will be seamless no matter what. 

Or, are you asking which glazes look nice next to each other, more in a “harmonious” way rather than “seamless”? 

[Rebekah Krieger]

On 8/20/2022 at 2:20 PM, GEP said:

@Rebekah Krieger, you said you are looking for “seamless” results. Can you expand on what you mean by that? When combining more than one glaze on a pot, there’s almost always going to be a seam. Though @Pres has a great suggestion about softening seams with sprayed glazes. Or, are you overlapping multiple glazes, where one glaze completely covers another glaze? In this case, the result will be seamless no matter what. 

Or, are you asking which glazes look nice next to each other, more in a “harmonious” way rather than “seamless”? 

Yes, you can see a distinct line where I did the layering. (Sprayed) 

[Denice]

I play around with glaze layering off and on,  I usually have some small bisque ware on my shelves.   I coat them with SCM   and then add two or three layers of glaze that I have sitting around.  I even use my miss mixes.   I have gotten some good looking pots and some real dogs,   it is a lot of fun to experiment.     Denice

[Min]

2 hours ago, Rebekah Krieger said:

you can see a distinct line where I did the layering. (Sprayed) 

I would be looking at reducing the psi you spray at and / or the size of the tip of the nozzle so you can get a smoother overlap. Also the distance you are spraying the pot from makes a difference. Just backing up a bit might help also.

Insofar as your other question about what glazes layer well have a look at the chemistry of the glazes you are using. Interesting glazes can happen when 2 dissimilar type glazes are layered.  If one is high in alumina and low in silica (like most matte glazes are) try layering that with a gloss that is low in alumina (it will be high in silica) and likely quite fluid because of the low alumina. What the one glaze is low on it will try and pull from the other glaze, this can lead to interesting overlaps. Like others have said having titanium in one of the glazes (from titanium dioxide or rutile) also helps.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Min