Revisiting Slip Decoration
· 2 min read
The result is not perfect, but it is honest. For a long time I treated ash glazes as an afterthought. None of this is new, and that is partly why it works.
Odds and ends
I altered my mind about handles twice while writing this. The glaze looked grey in the bucket and came out deep blue. The kiln opened warm, and the first bowl made it all worth it. What surprised me most was how little equipment it needed.
Where it started
I would rather do one thing with care than five things in a hurry. Test tiles are unexciting until one of them changes all of it. Functional pots should feel good in the hand before anything else. Every summer I revisit the same questions about mugs.
There is a version of this that is much more complicated. This is not that version. I wrote most of this on a quiet Saturday morning. This is less a primer and more a record of what worked for me. Mugs are harder than they look; handles most of all. For a long time I treated handles as an afterthought.
- Ask someone at the kiln shed
- Write down what you change
- Note the date and the weather
- Give mixing glazes a full spring
- Write down what you change