I was looking for colours in ceramics, I found that vireous slip is probably a good way to colour the sculpture, because it can be applied on both leather-hard body and bisque-ware. I made four colours: lemon, olive green, orange, yellow(it came out pink), and I colour-blend them which creates many shades of yellow, green, brown, orange. Interestinly, the place where has transparent galze it’s colour is more revealing. On the back of the test tile is where I test how colour glazes and silps effect each other. Asyou can see on olive green slip, the red glaze becomes dark brown, the pink glaze becomes light-green,
Vitrous Slip Recipe
Calcined ball clay 35%
Calcined china clay 25%
Cornish stone 20%
Flint 20%
Light Medium Dark
Oxides 0.2-2.5% 2.5-5% 5-10%
Stains 2-5% 5-10% 10-15%
Left / I ordered a Mason stain of golden yellow, but the test show the actual colour are very grey.
Middle / I tested how glaze react with white vitreous slip underneath.
Right / I testes the velvet underglazes to see the contract of blue and orange.
I wrote about the coloured clay test in previous post. This is the result from 1260 degrees firing, finally. They go much darker after firing. I made some basic colours and blend them with variation of other colour. I don’t please with the vanadium which doesn’t look like yellow.
The test tile is made of slate grey stain mixed with porcelain. I test glazes to find out the best color combinations. I like the yellow and green.
In conclusion, it is always important to record down how much colourant you put in, otherwise you are not gonna to create the same shade of colour, which it annoyed me when I ran out of slip and I forgot how much I put in. And always test it before the final piece, like it is pink which I expected it to be yellow.
Yixia Lin. 