How to Glaze Clay Sculptures

Video Transcript

"I am Chitrotpola Mukherjee speaking on behalf of Expert Village and I am from Oxpace, India. Today I am going to show you how a ceramic, that is a glazed piece of art, is made. First for glazing we have to get the piece that we wish to glaze; we wish to make it into a sculpture. You have to first bisque. I will show you a piece here which has been bisqued. It has been bisqued in the sense that you have made it from the rare soil. We have made this piece and we have put it into the furnace from 700 to 800 degrees centigrade. We have kept it in the furnace for almost eight hours, seven to eight hours. After it is cooled we have taken it out and it is here ready for glazing. Now, when we are glazing what do we use. We basically use different kinds of oxides for glazing. For different colors we have different oxides. Like we have titanium in tin for white, chrome for yellow, then we have cobalt for blue and copper for green. These are some of the basic colors that we use. Glaze is mixed and applied and to the body of the bisqued piece. After it has been applied we again put it into the furnace, but this time when we are glazing the temperature must be higher it goes up to 1,000 to 11,000 maybe even 11,050 degrees and we have to keep the temperature in control. Again it is put through seven or eight hours even longer, ten hours, almost ten hours I think to be on the safe side. We put it in for ten hours and after it has cooled it is taken out and we have this glazed piece. Once you have done that then you are safe and your sculpture is also quite safe."