Hi! Thank you for sharing this was so useful. I have made a bowl from a slip with sodium silicate and now i wonder if i should clean it off the bottom like i would with glaze? Like should i avoid sodium silicate on my kiln shelves?:)
Hi, I am retired now and busier than ever. When I get back into the studio I will be making more videos. I have trimmed on many of my other videos so check them out. Thank you for your kind words!
Thanks for the video. Yesterday (student) I used RIO stain but it absorb because super dry and did not wash off like yours did. Did I do something wrong? I love the brown. Is a wash u mention the same as a stain? Thanks
Make sure you do it on bisque ware so it will wash off the high points. The wash is just iron and rutile mixed with water, brushed on the bisque and sponged off. Good luck!
I just recently found your channel and I’ve learned so much from your videos. This one was especially helpful because of the two views. Your explanations are very clear on all the videos.
I have tried this now a few times, and I am getting a bit better. However, most of my cracks are vertical and fairly deep. They look nice enough (for a beginner pot), but I would like to have more of the smaller cracks and also some horizontal ones. I do not know which the variable is that I need to change: wheel speed, amount of sodium silicate, length of drying? Do you have any suggestion?
It is hard to say without helping you in person. My best guess is to make sure the sodium silicate is dry to the touch before stretching. I hope that helps, keep practicing and you will fine tune it to your taste. good luck, Richard
I use cobalt carbonate which is finer than cobalt oxide and does not spot like the oxide can. I also add a little Iron oxide and Manganese dioxide to darken the cobalt which makes it easier to see when brushing. We get almost pure cobalt which is, in my opinion a bit too intense a blue when fired so the iron/manganese softens the color a little bit. In historical ceramics the cobalt was naturally mixed and not as pure as ours.
Hello, I do not know why but somehow I was convinced I can apply iron and other oxyde s (mangane, cobalt) straight on fired clay. No glaze undeneath or above. Reading here it seems I was wrong. What should I do now (apart from doing my homework BEFORE using materials I do not know…)? Fire the sculpture? And at what temperature? Try and brush off some of the oxydes?. When I touch the sculpture now oxydes come on my fingers as powder and it does not promise a good end result. Any other way to “salvage” my work? Thank you for your answer!
Yes there are many ways to utilize oxides with your ceramics. They can be on the raw bisque, under the glaze, in the glaze and on top of the glaze giving different results. Oxides will brush off if they are not fired to a high enough temperature or have something to flux them. Even Iron will brush off at earthenware temperatures. The higher the temperature the less flux you need until you need none. This varies from oxide to oxide. Iron is interesting because it can actually act as a flux at high temperatures. If you fire to a low temperature you can still use oxides as long as you either mix a little flux, like a clear glaze, frit or gerstley borate, with the oxide or apply a very thin wash of a clear glaze over the oxide before firing. You can work with the oxides like charcoal or graphite on paper and apply a fixative which can be a commercial artists fixative, clear acrylic spray, or even hair spray. These all burn off cleanly during the firing leaving the oxide on the piece without smearing. Good luck and make beautiful work, Richard
If it is a sculpture that no one can use for food you can treat it like a charcoal drawing and seal it with a fixative or a matte acrylic spray. This is not as permanent as firing but will last. I have some drawings that I did about 40 years ago using oxides and acrylic medium and they are like the day I made them.
