MKG001 Posted February 11 Report Share Posted February 11 I'd love recommendations for a deep brown or black clay body, cone 6, that works well with various glazes. (I've put various glazes on Laguna B3 and they seem to react with the clay and go to a muddy beige unless I use many coats. ) Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hulk Posted February 12 Report Share Posted February 12 Good question! I've used a few red clays, really liking IMCO's "Red Velvet Classic" cone 5/6 clay. The other reds were (much) more sensitive to overfiring, exhibited more defects, and required more fussing to dry without cracking. IMCO's red throws better, imo. My glazes certainly look different over the red - I like the look though! The black clay I'd tried (not IMCO's) was expensive, sensitive to overfiring, and my liner glaze didn't fit; fired, it's very dense and strong, however. So, I'd like to recommend IMCO's Golden Brown, Coffee Berry, and Night clays, however, I haven't tried them myself. You might give IMCO a ring to ask questions; I've found them to be open and responsive. Aaron is the person I usually speak with. He was off last time I was there; the person who helped me was also friendly, open, and helpful, however. Hope this "bump" helps - check back, perhaps someone will post some brown and black recommendations... MKG001 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterH Posted February 12 Report Share Posted February 12 Anything of interest in these threads? MKG001, Min and Hulk 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callie Beller Diesel Posted February 12 Report Share Posted February 12 As a regular red clay user, darker clays are going to have a different effect on glazes than lighter coloured ones do. Even leaving out the possibility of oxide interactions, the dark background behind any translucent/transparent glaze is going to reflect light differently than a lighter coloured background will. If you take this effect into account and work with it rather than against, you can get much more satisfying results out of your glazes, whether they’re commercial or homebrew. Darker clay bodies DO work well with commercial glazes, they just don’t look the same as the sample they only show on white clay, and that’s frustrating. I have no idea why they only show samples on white clay, because there’s a huge range of clay colours out there, but here we are. As a general rule, yes, if you’re using brush on commercial glazes, you will have to add more layers over a darker clay for best results. You’ll need the extra pigmentation to overcome that aforementioned dark background. Even on light coloured clays, a too-thin glaze layer is gonna go that yucky green or brown. With darker clays, doubly so. You may find that variegated glazes, or glazes with titanium or rutile will actually look much better on red/dark clays than they do on lighter lay bodies. The extra iron kicks those rutile blues into overdrive, and it’s really nice. If you want a result that’s closer to the samples, you probably also want to choose more opaque looking glazes, or even add a white slip over your red clay to pop certain colours. Or even use it as a way of getting 2 different effects on a piece with only one glaze. You are not likely to get light or pastel colours to come out true on red clay, unless they’re highly pigmented or contain a lot of opacifiers. Even then, they’ll have a more tonal cast to them. Roberta12, MKG001, Min and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilestrick Posted February 13 Report Share Posted February 13 All dark brown/black bodies do odd things with glazes. You have to do a lot of testing to find glazes that work well with them. Those that do can be really striking, though, especially if you leave areas of the clay body visible. My students use a fair amount of Standard 266, and it's a wonderful body to work with. Has a great feel. Don't go past cone 5 with it, though, or you risk bloating. MKG001 and Hulk 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterH Posted February 13 Report Share Posted February 13 10 hours ago, neilestrick said: My students use a fair amount of Standard 266 Two googles that might be worth trying, and an example hit from both. site:glazy.org "standard 266" https://glazy.org/recipes/22329 Shows a base glaze with several different colourants. "standard 266" glaze selecting the "images" option https://www.flickr.com/photos/133519868@N03/32484512766 Finally .. Glazy has an Alfred Blue at https://glazy.org/recipes/217896 ... and the referenced "University of Maryland Glazes" article is on p32 of ... https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/docs/default-source/uploadedfiles/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2015/06/ceramics-monthly-feb80-cei0280d.pdf Hulk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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