‘Burls’ with part glaze…
18 March 2025
Head going round in a full circle - revisiting idea for the BURLS series - a ‘Burl’ or ‘Burr’ is a gnarled, rounded growth that forms on a tree as it attempts to heal and protect itself from injury or stress.
Thoughts… envisage using a white clay, with burl areas created using my ‘petals’ texture technique. On the smooth body of the tree form, apply glaze using a crawl or crackle glaze - might need to do a test cylinder for this!
This technique could also be used on a naturally coloured clay body, perhaps with a transparent crawl glaze (if that even exists!).
28 March 2025
Thought process has moved on again - have realised that any naturally coloured colour could be used at this stage (later on could look at colouring a neutral clay body) then glaze the smooth area as this will contrast with the patterned area as that will be kept unglazed.
3 April 2025
Have made up a variegated black glaze and applied it to the bisque test tile, off to be fired in the electric kiln.
24 April 2025
Really pleased with the test tile and the effect of the variegated black glaze on black PF680 clay, providing contrasts on multiple levels - petal texture/smooth surface, unglazed/glazed, with the additional layer of texture within this variegated glaze. Have started to build a test maquette, using a simple form, to try out this combination further.
