Monday, April 23, 2007

Wax Resist Tea Bowl


I don't know why I haven't tried wax resist with my raku pieces earlier.
I was expecting a turquoise crackle glaze but ended up with a burgandy maroon. The glaze I used was "Ferguson's Turquoise." If you look close, you can see one speck of turquoise on the lower left of the bowl.
Anyway, to acheive this result I glazed the interior of the bowl and then painted hot wax on the interior. Then I dipped the rim in the hot wax to create a nice even glaze line around the rim of the bowl.
Holding the bowl upside down by the footring I dripped hot wax over the pot (to drip the wax I used a two-inch paint brush) . Once that was dry I dunked the bowl in the glaze bucket two times. The glaze ran off the pot where there were traces of wax. Once the footring was sponged off I fired-up the kiln.
It was a really windy day to be firing and I think the reason why I got red instead of turquoise was I had a hard time controlling the environment in my kiln. I had kiln shelves set up as wind breaks but even they kept blowing down. I was just too anxious to fire. In the end it worked out quite well and I am very happy with the end result.