Glaze is normally applied to pottery once it has been bisque fired. At its simplest, glaze is made up of ingredients that melt and turn to glass when they are heated in the kiln.
When the kiln cools, the liquid glass turns solid again and forms a non-porous glass cover on the pottery.
A glazed finish can be clear. Clear glaze is often used to seal, protect and enhance decoration that has been added to the pottery already. Or, the glaze itself can have color, texture, and character which is used to decorate the pottery.
How is Glaze Applied?
In its raw, unfired state, glaze is a liquid. And that liquid can be applied to pottery in a number of different ways.
One way to apply it is to dip your pottery into a bucket of glaze
The bisque pottery is only in the glaze mix for a matter of seconds before it is taken out again.
Another way to apply glaze is to brush it on. Brushing glaze is thicker than dipping glaze because it needs to stay on the pot without sliding or dripping down the side when applied.
Different Types of Glaze
Some potters make their own glaze, whilst others use ready-made glaze from a pottery supplier. The advantage of making your own glaze is that it is much more cost-effective. However, using a ready-made glaze has the advantage of being convenient.
If you like chemistry and experimenting with recipes, then you might love making your own glaze.
Either way, there are lots of types of pottery glaze that can create very different effects when you are decorating pottery.
Some glazes are known as static glazes, these glazes stay in place when they are fired. So, the pattern that you paint onto the pottery will be the pattern that appears when the pot comes out of the kiln.
Other glazes are called flowing glazes, and these tend to move about on the surface of the pot when it’s fired. This can create a nice liquid, drippy effect when fired, with different colors blending into one another.
Glazes vary in opacity, meaning that some are dense block colors, whilst others are partially transparent.
In addition to this, some glazes are designed to highlight the texture on the surface of your pottery. These are known as breaking glazes. If you have carved into the surface of your pottery, a breaking glaze will pool in the recesses of the texture.
