Glaze Chemistry (Seagull Egg)

Today in the studio I mixed up five kilos of a new glaze named Seagull Egg (formally Mouldy Drywall)
This glaze is a great semi-matt glaze, neutral off white base with little flecks and blotches of blueish crystal growth within the glaze.

Seagull Egg is the result of recent trials in developing a series of textured matt glazes. Below is a colourant test run. Seagull Egg (far right) is the base with varying amounts of oxides to add colour and texture. Small amounts, up to five percent of rutile and nickel oxide were added.

Below is our fancy digital scale, which makes glaze mixing a dream! Gone are the days of triple-beam balances. The tare button and fast acting display makes whipping up a batch of glaze much easier.

Titanium oxide is one of my favourite but more costly ingredients. It opacifies the glaze with a warm off-white opaqueness that is different than the industrial white of zirconium based opacifiers. 

 

Glaze materials are weighed out according to amounts in
the glaze formula.

After each material is carefully weighed out, they are mixed thoroughly with water to a creamy consistency. All glazes are passed through a fine mesh sieve to homogenize all materials and remove the clumps of dry materials.

 Then it's clean up time!