Autographs Milena Velba

Cooking & Glazing

Yesterday, to my surprise, I received an email where I was asked a few questions about your cooking and glazing of ceramics.

I decided to respond to a post so my answer would be helpful to other people.

COOKING: Once the piece is dry (still a bit damp is likely to break during cooking) proceed with firing in a special oven that reaches 980 degrees (for baking the porcelain we need a high-temperature furnace, which exceeds 1000 °).
After firing, the piece will be a beautiful red brown, now it is time to proceed with the glazing.

GLAZING : There are many ways to glaze, if we are not interested to proceed with the drafting of the decorations of enamel, which Piombico or may be lead-free (lead glazes are generally brighter, but are not recommended for household objects), we find them in specialty stores in the dust, we can take ready-made or prefer a crystal (clear polish) or a glaze white and add us oxides to achieve different results, for example: copper ox to get the colors green and turquoise, iron ox to shades of yellow, purple for manganese ox, etc ..., the oxides can have different reactions depending on the amount and basis Piombica or unleaded.

There is much to learn about glazes, I'm just beginning, but I have learned errors that may come out of special effects ... but not always;)


Once prepared enamel (powder with added water until the consistency is quite liquid) we can proceed with the actual glazing own at this point we can decide whether enamel spray (you need a compressor and nail polish must be a bit 'more liquid), by brush, dipping or waterfall. After preparing the pieces enough to place them in the oven and proceed with the second firing. The pottery takes time and patience, is not immediate, and here I have yet to learn a lot, I managed to ruin pieces only for the curiosity to open even when the oven was too hot, the temperature gap splits terracotta and enamel.
enamel, which in firing glazes, makes our building waterproof.

I remember two previous post that may be helpful:
how to prepare the slip
how to make a bowl with the technique of SLAB
If you need further clarification please contact me, I will happy to help you.

Thanks Roberta!
so much creativity at all.

Veronica