Crystalline Glazes

I have to say that crystalline glazes have been some of my favourites!

In February - I took a two day class with a potter from this area who is very well know for his crystalline glaze pottery - Jay Burns.

It was hands on - so we learned on the first day, then went home, made some small pots, and brought them back for glazing on the second day.

Now - for those of you that aren't familiar with crystalline glazes. There are actually crystals growing on the surface of the pottery. This is achieved by having the right glaze medium - and maintaining a particular temperature in the kiln for a certain amount of time, in order to let the crystals form. The glazes for crystals are very runny - and in some cases will run right off the pot - so you have to make little drip trays to catch the glaze - or else your kiln shelves will be ruined. Crystalline glazing is actually a rather work intensive process - which is why crystalline pots will sell for so much more money.




These are some examples of my pots:



(if you click on the picture you can make it larger to see better detail)

This first image is of 3 small bowls that I made.

Now - we did encounter some minor problems
with the glaze. We had to reformulate the glaze
to a cone 6 from a cone 10 glaze - and it didn't
want to melt and run the way that it should.

So you will see a couple of bare spots on the
bowls where the glaze didn't fill in - but all
in all - for a first attempt - I was very excited
to get some nice crystal growth.




The second image is just a closer shot of the blue bowl that I made.




The third shot is of one of the green bowls that I
made.

I actually made 2 green bowls - but one of them had a very large bare spot on it.








And this last shot is of a little bud vase that I
made. I am quite pleased with the
vase - there is a little spot under the rim that didn't run - but it was pretty good over all.


I decided to try the blue on top of the green just for a bit of fun - it ran nicely and gave quite a good effect.

The pot did start to slump ever so slightly - as we were firing these glazes to cone 8, and I was only using a cone 6 clay - but it's not too noticeable from this angle.

I have been collecting crystalline glazed pottery for several years now, and have a sizable collection from various potters.

In a future post - I will show some of their pots - and the beautiful colours that can be achieved with crystalline glazes.

Hopefully by then - I can add in some more of my own pots to show.