On being a Tease... er.... Teal

If there was one thing I'd like to do better, it would be to take better photographs for this blog. Oh, I get by, but the images aren't great, like some blogs that I frequent.

Here are a couple of test tiles for a Teal version of the waterfall glaze; are you sick of hearing about that glaze yet?

Taking these pictures was difficult. I'd mentioned a few days ago on my favorite ceramic message board that I would post these, and I received a couple of e-mails asking where they were. Pushy, pushy! I ended up having to shoot these on four different occasions, the sun and the shadows weren't cooperating. Like I said, I'd love to be able to have some consistency with my photography skills.

The tile below caught my eye when it came out of the kiln, it was vibrant, reminding me of ocean colors. It was one of those accidents, I wasn't trying to come up with Teal, it just happened in the course of testing.


The tile below is another "accident", and although I dropped it and had to tape it back together, you can still see the deeper color and patterns formed from slow cooling in the kiln.

The funny thing is - in the beginning, I thought I liked the tile above best. But after spending a couple of sessions shooting these images, I am now favoring the one below.

Here they are, side by side. With recipes, to boot.


Remember, I'm not a real potter, I just play one on TV. Every single recipe here should be tested in your studio - on your clay, with your particular glaze chemicals, and of course, on your kiln schedule. If you come up with something great...I want pictures!

Back to woodworking in my next post, I'm working on something that I think will shed some light one one of the most common of woodworking procedures - squaring up a board. For some reason, I've been getting a few e-mails about the proper way to do that, so I'm working on something that should help.