Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Texture

A few weeks ago I demonstrated how to achieve a highly textured surface on a thrown pot using slip with sodium silicate. When the sodium silicate is "dry" and you begin to expand the cylinder, you get a crackled surface. I had added red iron oxide to achieve a more dramatic contrast for demonstration purposes. The end result were about 3 very fat forms with some excellent texture. Anyway, after the bisque, I rubbed in some Barnard slip, and then a thin wash of iron oxide and a further wash of a rutile/Gerstley Borate/Neph Sey mixture. The trick was then "how to glaze neatly" without obscuring the texture. On 2 of them I brushed on a thick layer of liquid latex on the untextured areas, let it dry a bit and then brushed on a wax emulsion over the textured areas. Once the latex was removed, I was able to glaze those areas fairly cleanly. I decided to see if the latex would work directly on the textured areas instead and brushed a very thick coat all over where I did not want the glaze. I was worried that it would stick in the copious nooks and crannies, so I let it dry for several days. I removed it last night, after dipping the whole thing in some glaze and it came off beautifully. So beautifully in fact that I kept the rubber ring that came off in one complete sheet. The texture it picked up was amazing, now I just have to find a way to use it in future work. As I am forgetful, I don't have an image of the textured latex, but these are a couple of the bottles before the oxide baths I gave them....

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