Testing Ceramics

September 20th-27th Making test tiles

Before beginning my ceramic pieces for this project, I wanted to test out different white stoneware clays and new colourful glazes. Due to the fact that I like white clay and that the only white clay available to me at college is Porcelain (which is tricky to hand build with), I wanted to find a clay that would work well for both hand building and give me the white colour.

I began by ordering 1kg sample bags of 4 different white clays: White special stoneware, White stoneware, Professional Porcelain Stoneware and Porcelain stoneware. I then proceeded to test out 18 different Amaco velvet underglazes on all 4 different clays. This was very tedious and took so long to do and on top of that I tested out mixing some colours together and layering them on top of eachother . I finally also tested out 2 different clear glazes on top of all the colours.

This was the first lot of work I ever fired in my own kiln which was very exciting.

The results answered many of my questions, the most obvious one was that the new clear glaze I bought wasn't good at all so i'll be sticking with my usual one. In terms of clay, my favourite was the Professional Porcelain stoneware due to the fact it came out the whitest, however it did have a downside in when hand building it was very soft and plastic-e. Where as the special white stoneware was the best built clay for hand building but it did lack the whiteness of the Porcelain stoneware.

My conclusion of the testing process was to use both the Professional porcelain stoneware and the Special white stoneware depending on what forms I made. I was happy with how the colours came out and most of the ones I mixed also came out good.

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