Granulating Your Glazes
To prepare your own colors of granular stand-up glazes, proceed as follows:Obtain some fine silica sand, having particles about the size of sugar grains. A pound or two of sand will make a good deal of stand-up glaze (however, since granular glazes are generally used only for design work, it is usually necessary to prepare only small amounts - an ounce or two of each color being ample).
Place about a pound of the sand in a deep bowl, and fill the bowl with water; stir the sand, allow it to settle, and the dust, dirt and other impurities will float to the top of the water. Carefully drain off the dirty water, and repeat this "washing" step until the rinse water remains clean. Drain off the final rinse water, spread out the clean sand on several thicknesses of clean newspaper, and allow it to dry. Clean, dry sand can be stored in a jar, ready for future glaze preparations; for this purpose, many ceramists save the small jars in which many ceramic products are packaged.
Several types of ready-made glazes can be used to make granular glazes: regular colored gloss glazes give excellent results, as do satin glazes; regular stand-up type glazes can be used, if first thinned with water to the thickness of cream. The colors of most glazes will remain constant after being granulated, while clear or white glazes can be tinted to the desired tones through the addition of translucent underglaze colors. The only glazes which sometimes present a problem are the red and orange colors, having a tendency to darken or turn grey if not applied in sufficient thickness; to overcome this defect, red and orange granular glazes should be reserved for use in those areas of a design which can be thick (3-dimensional).
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January 7, 2009