Several years ago, I put aside all friendly warnings, dismissed my trepidation, and started mixing my own glazes. I promised my readers that I’d report on how it was going and I’m happy to say that I’m really pleased with the results of my experimentation. I have caught the bug for testing new glazes and have now tried over 200 recipes. At this point, I’ve eschewed all “commercial” glazes for my own mixes. I can get a ton of unique variations with the layering, get more specific with the colors in my favorite tones, and save money as well. While commercial glazes are lovely and quite reliable, what they are mostly selling is water.
Once I started collecting a few recipes from sources like Glazy, ICAN, and Digitalfire, I began to understand what kinds of glazes I liked best which turn out to be lots of greens and blues. These also happen to be the easiest and most forgiving to start working with and so I quickly settled on a few favorites and then began testing other colors. The most difficult to achieve have been the purples and the reds; getting stability and reliability of use was tricky.
Glazes that don’t work out— perhaps they craze of pinhole, or I just don’t get the color I thought I would —don’t get thrown away but are mixed with another glaze that might also be a dud. A glaze that crawls and is too “stiff” might get mixed with one that’s too runny. I’ve had some success with this and it keeps waste of precious materials to a minimum. Other glazes might be fine except the color is not to my liking, so I’ll add some stain to change it and voila!— I’ve got another unique glaze.
It’s been fun experimenting with this (highly recommend) and the journey has deepened my practice in becoming a serious ceramist.
Lots of studio glazes to choose from in all colors of the rainbow. But powdered rock is a dull grey until it’s fired.
For more on the safety of using dry materials like oxides, but especially silica, which is hazardous to our lungs, please check out this factsheet provided by the folks at ConsumerNotice: https://www.consumernotice.org/environmental/silica-dust/. There you will find the specifics on how to stay safe in your pottery and glaze studio.