Winter Trees Switchplate

This is a purchased piece of bisqueware that I ordered online. I would like to make some of my own, but calculating the shrinkage is too much fuss for my taste.

One of the things I wanted to try with this kiln was how the black wax worked. I’ve seen some lovely tiles that use the black wax as an outline to demarcate glaze sections. It helps a lot if you want painterly techniques, because the low-fired glazes are a timesink to apply.

I cribbed this design from a book of stained glass designs.  It wasn’t too hard to freehand sketch it onto the bisqued switchplate with the bottle of wax. The wax comes out through a jacquard tip, and because I’ve done slip trailing and henna, I’m pretty good at using a jacquard bottle. For the most part, I’m happy with how this turned out.  The two flaws I hope the recipient of this gift will not be irritated by are the piece of terracotta kiln trash in the sky, and the fact that the blue-green glaze on the bottom ran into the neighboring fields. The former is poor luck, the latter may be because the kiln overfired. I’ve been having issues with my kiln consistently overfiring, and I haven’t quite worked it out yet.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

18 − 17 =

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.