A Sneaky Preview
Hello Everyone. Here is a quick gander at my new glaze: ‘Novia’
I have been working on creating glazes for quite a while, but recently I’ve been putting a lot of work into making something that really stands out and that I am proud to call my own.
The first of these happy glazes I have named ‘Novia’.
Novia takes on a lovely speckled appearance, it flecks white from micro-crystals on its surface, and picks up dark iron speckles from the clay body beneath.
I find sits wonderfully on my pots too, with just enough movement to pull wonderful streaks down the more vertical surfaces of a pot, resembling the striations of an iris.
But I have to admit, this glaze has been a little bit of a problem child - taking a serious bit of finangling.
But with the right kiln conditions, and a bit of luck, it is here!
My favourite piece from this first small batch of finished Novia pots is this small jug that I made.
I love how the glaze breaks where I have thinned it at the rim, particularly at the spout.
Furthermore, it pours so successfully (without drips) that I am wholly satisfied, I will be throwing and glazing some more like this in the near future.
I’m looking forward to seeing how the handled jugs and mugs come out in this glaze too!
I love the variation that occurs across pieces, breaking into more green tones and browns where the glaze is thin, and becoming occluded and pale where it thickens, with a spectrum of blues in between.
But as I said, this glaze has been a serious problem child. I only have a small handful of finished pots so far.
The crux of this deceitful glaze is that it is picky about what temperature it likes to be cooked to.
If it doesn’t reach the temperature, the glaze comes out a flat matte, filled with often imperceptible imperfections.
To make matters worse - The failed glazes can look annoyingly good! They are so beautiful, only completely useless!
The clay looks fully cooked, but the glaze - oh the glaze.
Like just look at how vibrant that purple is.
Will I be able to make a stable glaze like this? probably not! At least not any time soon!
And yes, the glaze is kind of giving squidward in a nice way
Even if the pots actually reach the right temperature (a balmy 1220°C) - the glaze needs to linger there long enough for the glass to actually get it together, so my first refires busted too!
This time was even more upsetting than the first as the clay body looked like it had reached its target temperature, but the glaze still was way off, and again - unusable.
I was certain I had messed up. Somehow I made my recipe wrong. Or dipped it wrong. Or maybe the moon was now waning, or the north star was a minutia out of alignment.
I thought The glaze would never form and I had betrayed my boxes of pots.
I was wrong about that of course. The glaze merely demanded it just right. “The middle kiln” it snickered.
The goldilocks glaze simply relished in dangling the threat of some 40 ruined pots as a sword of damocles over my conscience.
And I must reiterate it looked good whilst doing it. The devil wears prada (if prada is a nice shade of purple).
Thank you for reading about my Novia glaze.
All the best,
Jacob