Head Start on the Holidays

I got the first batch of porcelain  holiday ornaments cut out- hopefully they will survive the drying process- with the leaves you never know.

This first batch of leaf shaped ornaments will be hanging by the stems- hopefully they will be strong enough when fired to hold together.

Some retro/modern shapes in this batch of porcelain ornaments

I went ahead and cut out another batch of jewelry pendants- I have several more glazes I want to experiment with and smaller pieces are good candidates for finishes when you have no idea what the final result will be.

Do you see any Gold?

So with this Gingko leaf shaped spoon rest I wanted to try glazing with actual gold leaf. It was first coated along the back and sides with Temmoku (a brown/black glaze) the the top was coated with Nutmeg (an orange-brown glaze). I then basically water gilt the top part with 24 kt gold leaf using “magic water” (a glass forming liquid – basically water with a high amount of silica). When it dried I topcoated the gold with a “clear” glaze. The results were not quite what I expected-

This leaf developed a beautiful onyx like finish upon firing.

While the “clear” glaze actually came out very cloudy- and the gold leaf seemed to magically disappear- the final results were actually quite beautiful. The clear glaze developed striations-like you would find in onyx- where the gold leaf had crackled underneath. And in these if you look really closely you can see tiny specks of the gold leaf caught in the clear glaze.

A close up view of a Gingko Leaf Spoon rest with an Onyx finish. If you look closely you can see minute specks of the gold leaf that bubbled up in the crackles of the clear top coat.