How to Apply Clear Pottery Glaze

Video Transcript

"Hi, I am Jen from Clay Cafe and on behalf of Expert Village I'll be showing you how to take you're ceramic piece from start to finish. Once a piece has been painted and the design is complete, the next the pieces going into the processing stage. To start the processing stage, we enter into the clear glazing. This doesn't look very clear...it actually has a purplish tint to it...and the reason that is done is the manufacturers actually add a food color mineral into the glaze and it acts as a visual guide to the glazers who need to cover an idea piece insuring everything is nice and sealed, watertight and of course food safe. So to start the glazing process, what we want to do is make sure our glaze is very well mixed and has the right consistency. A great product that is a little strange but works really really great for mixing your glaze is a toilet brush, believe it or not. Toilet brushes are really, really great because they have all these bristles and it will scoop up any of the sludge that will happen when your glaze sits. So you just want to give it a really nice, good stir. A couple of times. And make sure everything is really nicely mixed and you're ready to start glazing. Some people will dip pieces into a clear glaze and other choose to paint it on. I really like the non-abrasiveness of dipping because really you're not touching the pieces a whole lot and when you are painting your clear glaze on, what can happen is as soon as the piece gets wet, you reactivate the paint and when a paint is reactivated, it's very easy for you to start moving it when you are brushing it on. So, to start to dip your piece, which is what I prefer, you're just going to take...I'm doing a simple tile here...and I am actually only going to dip one half first and then dip the other half. I'll also show you the same technique on a bowl and the way we do that. We only dip half a piece at a time so as to not disturb the paint underneath. If I am putting my fingers all over the wet glazes, I can easily smudge and put my fingerprints into the person's glaze, which most customers don't want. So what I am going to do is I am going to take the piece and dip it lightly and give it a really good shake. Some people like to blow on the piece to get the excess paint off but I find sometimes that creates some drip marks so I tend to just shake the piece off. And then, it's covered in purple and I just lay it down on this drying grid and it can just sit there to dry until it's ready for it's next dip. All of the excess glaze nicely drips off onto this mat and we just make sure that we clean it periodically so that the glaze doesn't build up and start to affect the bottom of the pieces. Next I'll show you how to clear glaze a bowl. Bowls are a little bit different and it's easier to show you the half and half step. So all I'm going to do is to take the piece and I'm going to dunk it and give it a little bit of a swoop, pick it up and of course give it another shake. You give it a really really good shake to get all the excess glaze off 'cause you only really want a nice thin layer of the clear glaze onto your piece. And then you're piece will just sit on the glazing rack until it's ready to be cleaned."