Two years of taking notes every time I glazed a pot has finally paid off.
Rewind like 6 years ago: I made and glazed over 144 sample tiles. It seemed like every potter had sample tiles except me. Every combination of every glaze in my library was tested over and under each other. Then I spent another year figuring out how to read and study these tiles, what do I do with these now that I have them?
I started putting stars on the tiles I liked. I started glazing pots mimicking the patterns on the tiles. I made lists of "tried and true" combinations and taped them all over my studio walls. I was starting to get the hang of this!
Finally I created a spiral bound journals for note taking, and one by one I filled up these notebooks. I took notes every time I glazed a pot. What glazed I applied first, second, and then third. Did I put flux on the rim? Check. Did I paint Alligator Green around the belly? Check. After the pieces came out of the kiln - I wrote down the results. Did I like it? Hate it? What would I do better next time?
Glazing a bunch of bare pots can be intimating, just like a blank canvas. Many of us hate glazing and my lesson here was planning and note taking has now made glazing fun.
I really use those notebooks, I look back, read my results, star and tag pages of combinations that work. I put big red X's on things that didn't.
Rewind like 6 years ago: I made and glazed over 144 sample tiles. It seemed like every potter had sample tiles except me. Every combination of every glaze in my library was tested over and under each other. Then I spent another year figuring out how to read and study these tiles, what do I do with these now that I have them?
I started putting stars on the tiles I liked. I started glazing pots mimicking the patterns on the tiles. I made lists of "tried and true" combinations and taped them all over my studio walls. I was starting to get the hang of this!
Finally I created a spiral bound journals for note taking, and one by one I filled up these notebooks. I took notes every time I glazed a pot. What glazed I applied first, second, and then third. Did I put flux on the rim? Check. Did I paint Alligator Green around the belly? Check. After the pieces came out of the kiln - I wrote down the results. Did I like it? Hate it? What would I do better next time?
Glazing a bunch of bare pots can be intimating, just like a blank canvas. Many of us hate glazing and my lesson here was planning and note taking has now made glazing fun.
I really use those notebooks, I look back, read my results, star and tag pages of combinations that work. I put big red X's on things that didn't.
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