The Art of Crystalline Glazing: Basic Techniques

Rating:
Summary: Thorough, Systematic, Beautiful!
Review: Yes, this book is full of beautiful pictures to drool over. After an hour or so of taking in the photos, you may begin to notice there's words and stuff around the photos. Words about the importance of maintaining consistent clay body chemistry when fine-tuning your glaze recipes and firing programs, how to protect your kiln from the caustic "runny" glazes that will ooze right off the bottom of the work, and so forth.

What particularly impressed me as I paid more attention to the words was the author's emphasis on systematic experimentation. There are a lot of variables that affect the formation of zinc oxide crystals, or even whether you'll get any crystal formation at all. So, from the very start you're going to have to run a series of controlled tests to find the "sweet spot" for crystal formation in your kiln, on your particular clay body chemistry, for a particular glaze recipe and firing program. Once you've dialed that in, you can tweak individual parts of the system (glaze formulation, glaze application and thickness, firing program) to alter your baseline crystal glaze. The authors provide detailed recipes and firing programs as well as notes on directions the reader can explore through further experimentation to develop your own unique signature glazes.