SWIZ - Mugs 'n' Stuff....yep! More lamps (and some pendants).

Those look super good especially with the wood grain. I am still amazed at how sharp the teeth look, no touch up needed? Wendy

Love the woodgrain!

Thanks MDM, Wendy and ebtiki.

Wendy, you asked if there was no clean up needed on the teeth but there is. I pulled another couple of mugs from the molds today. The one on the left is the first sculpt and that needs it quite a bit. The second sculpt only really needs a bit done in the corners, however I do go over the whole thing. The 2nd pic is a bit blurry but you can see the difference.

Ok now it I can see it's like when I cast. Thank you for the close up. Great photos, terrific tiki, Wendy

What a great design Swizzle, Your woodgrain looks great, can't wait to see some glaze on them.. Where do we sign up?? :)

Well it's been quite a long time since I started my ceramics course to get to here but my first glazed mugs have come out of the kiln and home. This is the very first mug from the mold. I used some colours that were available at my school that I liked on the outside and the interior is the purple that I tried mixing myself. It actually turned out quite a nice colour. The outside of the mug was a pale green with a blue over the top. I was hoping to get a speckled effect, but this is how it turned out. Not what I wanted but I still think it looks pretty cool.

This mug is the second from the mold. One of my closest friends asked to have that one and he glazed it himself. I chose the colours, which are a beautiful jade/blue on the outside and a grey on the inside. He decided to do the "eyes" the same colour as the inside. :roll: (They are not the eyes. They are the eyelids.) I like the colours but not the effect. Doesn't matter, it's his mug.

The third mug I glazed is going to my good friend Careless Navigator. I am extremely stoked how this mug came out. I used a dark brown on the inside from my local ceramic supplier and the outside has a lovely brown from school called "Rockingham Brown". Unfortunately it's quite a thin mug so it has a crack running down the back from the top which you can just see in the photo and also has a small area on the top edge where the glaze didn't cover it enough. Other than that I think it came out awesome. Very happy.

These next few pics are of a Moai gear stick shifter and skull pendant a friend of mine will be casting in resin. I just glazed them in the colours I had in front of me to give them a smooth surface to cast from. I should have some of these to sell at some stage. Not sure what colours they are going to be though.

Well that's it for a few weeks until I have some more to show. Glazed another couple tonight but have to wait for them to be fired.

Very cool!

Chris

Great results Swizz, especially the wood grain look! You just never know what will happen with glaze, always an element of unpredictability. On the little glaze skip places, you can often brush a little glaze over the spot and re-fire it BUT if that mug already cracked in the kiln you run the risk of it cracking more. Cracks SUCK! :x

Awesome Swizzle! They both look great, the woodgrain with that glaze looks really good. I have 3 or 4 now with cracks that look great as planters.. :wink:
Crack does Suck!
Say no to Crack! :)

Aloha

Looking good, Robbie. I especially like the wood grain one. Too bad about the crack.
Crack is whack!

Bowie

Coming along nicely - the woodgrain mug is fantastic!

Thanks for the compliments WestADad, MadDogMike, Beachbumz, Bowana and ebtiki. Quite happy with the results so far considering i'm new to this.

Well tonight i glazed another two mugs in my class, plus i have another woodgrain one done in the second sculpt and a different brown which i glazed during the week, so i'll have three more mugs to be fired, hopefully ready next week. Tonight i also picked up the mug i glazed last week. It came out exactly as i hoped. I brushed black glaze into the teeth and all the crevices and then wiped it back so there was only a small amount left behind. Then i glazed 3 coats over the top and it worked perfectly.

(Left pic is with the flash on. Couldn't decide which showed the colours up better).

But................................................................

.....it shattered in the kiln. :(

It's hard to tell in the following pic because it's out of focus, but the black glaze i used on the inside was very thick.

My teacher and i are pretty confident that being so thick, as it was being fired it was shrinking/contracting at a much different rate to the outside glaze. If any of you experts out there could confirm that, or offer some other reason/s, i'd love to know. It's a shame because i was really happy with this one, but i suppose i can put it down to part of the learning process. I have to say i made sure the mugs i glazed tonight didn't have as much on them. :lol: I just hope i still put on ENOUGH glaze to get an even finish.

P.S. I also started a thread in Collecting Tiki asking for feedback. I'd like to hear from those who read this what they think.

Cheers
swizzle

SORRY SWIZZLE, SOMETIMES BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO WONDERFUL TIKIS. I REALLY LIKE THE CRACKED GLAZES BUT ON MY TESTS THEY WERE MEDIOCRE. YOURS LOOKED REALLY GOOD.

WHEN MY GLAZE HAS BEEN TOO THICK AT THE BOTTOM OF A MUG OR BOWL IT HAS BOILED AND ENDED UP PITTED LIKE LAVA. I'VE NOT HAD IT CAUSE A CRACK SO FAR. I LOOK FORWARD TO READING WHAT OTHERS HAVE TO SAY.

BEST OF LUCK ON THE NEXT BATCH, WENDY

Thanks Wendy. That crackle effect is not actually a feature of that particular glaze. I think it just happened as the mug was cracking. The other mug was fine until I reglazed it and that one did it then also (see below).

This week I picked up a few more of my mugs which will be going to friends and really are just for me to experiment with colours and to get my head around glazing.

This first mug will stay in my collection as it's the first mug poured from the new mold I made after I resculpted the master. It also has additional woodgrain carved into. Initially I tried to use a brown oxide on this mug which was to be applied and then wiped back to leave the colour in all the crevices, but I wasn't happy with how it turned out so I glazed over it with the brown used on the inside of the mug. After it had been fired I felt the finish was too patchy so I glazed over it again, this time with a lead based glazed called "Crackle Goldene" which should have come out literally a dark gold like colour, but it didn't. I'm still quite happy with the result though.

This mug is going to one of my oldest and dearest friends. This mug was also reglazed as the finish was too patchy for my liking. Although it still is a little bit, it certainly looks much better. Royal Blue exterior with Oyster White Speckle interior.

This mug has gone to a good friend who is the brand ambassador for Appletons Estate rum here in Melbourne, Aus. Although it had three coats of glaze on it, it still came out patchy (like the others) where the bush strokes are noticable. He, and another friend who saw it both like the finish and both said the same thing, it makes the mug look handmade, which I take as a compliment. This is the closest colour we had at school to red (his favourite colour) without using a lead based glaze. Burgendy exterior with Mist Green interior.

This last mug is another that I reglazed as I wasn't happy with the result, although that was more so because it didn't seem to come out the same colour as the mug I had glazed a few weeks earlier that cracked (page 4). Peacock Green exterior with Apple Green interior.

However, guess what happened?

:( That's two mugs that have cracked using the same green glaze. Originally I thought that the first mug cracked because the glaze on the inside was quite thick but this mug had only one coat on the inside and the same thing happened, although not as bad, yet it is still unusable. It was fine after the first glaze firing and only did this after I gave it another couple of coats, a total of four. I spoke to one of the other teachers at school and they said another student had made a huge vase and glazed it with the same colour and that cracked also. I rang the manufacturer and explained the situation and they said that they had never had any problems with that glaze before and that it must have been the clay body I was using, however that doesn't explain the other students vase which would have definitely been a different clay. They also said that there must also be some sort of tension issue going on with that glaze and the others used on the interior (a different brand) and that I should try using just that glaze on its own, but thats quite useless to me if I want to make a two-tone coloured mug. I'm really quite pissed off as it's a beautiful colour and I have two mugs to make for people who both want green but i'm reluctant to use it again as I don't want to waste my time if this is going to happen again. We have an Italian Green at school which is slightly darker and a different shade, but still quite nice so I think i'll give that a go instead. Fingers crossed that will be OK.

That's all at the moment. I have glazed another two mugs which are ready to be fired. Hopefully they'll be ready next week.

Cheers
swizzle

[ Edited by: swizzle 2011-06-11 03:28 ]

[ Edited by: swizzle 2011-06-11 03:32 ]

HI SWIZZLE, I JUST READ YOUR THREAD. I BROKE MY ARM AND HAD SURGERY SO I'VE NOT KEPT UP WITH ALL MY TIKI BUDDIES AS I SHOULD. SO SORRY THAT YOU ARE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH CRACKING. I HAVE HAD A LIME GREEN GLAZE THAT JUST FALLS OFF. I HAD TO TOSS A MUG. I DID TRY TO RE-GLAZE IT AND MORE JUST FELL OFF. IT WAS THE GLAZE BECAUSE ALL OTHER 33 MUGS CAME OUT FINE.

IT DIDN'T DO IT WITH MY GLAZE TEST THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPFUL. YOUR MUG IS TERRIFIC IN EVERY COLOR, CONGRATULATIONS.

HUGS, WENDY

DID YOU SEE THAT WE WERE WRITING TO EACH OTHER AT THE SAME TIME! WENDY

Thanks Wendy. When you mentioned that i went back and had a look and we were writing at the EXACT same time. How bizarre is that?

Picked up another glazed mug from school this week that is going to a good friend. He specifically asked for brown with red on the inside and the only nice red available at school to use is lead based, so he won't be drinking from this one.

When i picked it up from school and was having a look at it i noticed it had already had a few crazing lines on it. Yesterday when i woke up i turned the heater on, as it was a very cold night here, and i could hear the tell tale sounds of pinging coming from the mug. I went out out for a few hours and when i got back i heard a few more and had another close look at it and was amazed at how many more crazing lines now covered the mug. I've heard another one or two today also. The crazing doesn't bother me, i actually think it adds character to the mug, i just hope that it won't actually crack.

P.S. The reason it's so dark in the teeth and around all the raised sections is because i put some black glaze there and then wiped it back so that it would show through underneath the brown. Came out exactly how i wanted and i'm very happy with the finish.

Looks great Swizz! Because a mug can last forever and so does lead, I like to write "NOT FOOD SAFE" on the bottom when appropriate. This guy's great grandchildren could end up with lead poisoning when they discover this mug in the attic 100 years from now and use it to drink from :lol:

You are sure having your share of trouble with glazes, don't get discouraged! Everyone else has put their 2 cents worth in, I might as well add mine: Are you using a cone pack to be sure the kiln isn't over or under firing? Are you able to try a slower cycle so the kiln has more warm up and cool down time? Could be a Glaze Fit problem Are other people in the class using the same clay/glaze combination? Are they having problems too? I was told I could use low fire glazes on a high fire clay body fired at low fire - but I got shivering (chunks of glaze coming off) every time I tried it. I realize you may be limited in your choice of products, either in the school or available in Australia, but you might want to try another slip or glaze. The other (much more complicated) option is to put additives in your slip or glaze, I'm afraid I don't know much about that but the information is out there.

Keep pluggin' on Swizzle, you'll find the right combination!

Thank you so much for your input MDM, it's much appreciated.

Your advice on marking the mug not food safe makes sense. I just went and wrote that on the bottom after reading your comment. :)

Unfortunately being a community kiln i have no control over the firing. I go to each weekly class, glaze a mug or two, leave it there and hope it's been fired and comes out OK the following week when i'm there. My biggest issue has been with the green glaze, and the crazing on the recent brown mug i think has more to do with temperature fluctuations. Melbourne winters are quite crazy. Cold at night and then quite pleasant during the day. The slip i've been using has been fine for all the other mugs i've glazed so i'm not sure what's going on. I think it is the combinations of glazes i'm using. The interior and exterior glazes might be the same brand but there is obviously an issue with them reacting to one another after they've been fired. A tension issue i believe it is.

I'm very new to this and have learnt, as i've been told and read, that this is not an exact science and you cannot guarantee the outcome that you are hoping for will work. It's just frustrating spending so much time making and glazing a mug to have these things happen.

Thanks again for your comment.

[ Edited by: swizzle 2011-06-16 03:46 ]

Community kilns are a problems, I lost a few pieces that way. I've lost a few pieces in my own kiln too, but I had no one else to blame it on! :lol:

HI SWIZZLE, AT THE EXACT TIME, COOL. WE ARE JUST HOME FROM OREGON AND I HAD TO CHECK UP ON WHAT YOU ARE DOING NOW. I LIKE THE BLACK AROUND THE TEETH IT LOOKS GOOD ON A GREAT MUG, WENDY

Nice one Swizzle, I like the way that one came out... I only get the food safe glazes now, No like da lead Brada.. :wink:

Thanks Wendy.

I only used the lead based glaze because red was requested, Beachbumz. I personally don't like red myself so i wont be using it again. However.....

I picked up another two mugs today and this first one has the same lead based red glaze. The friend this mug was going to wanted it in his football (Australian Rules) teams colours, which are red and black. He wanted the mug red on the inside and black on the outside with the red flowing over the top like lava. I was happy to try that effect but as he really wanted to drink out of the mug i told him i'd have to do it in the reverse so he could use it. I glazed the red within an inch from the top and then added the black drips. Unfortunately the red didn't work quite as i had hoped (see the brown mug with red inside above) and my teacher said that this particular glaze could behave strangely during firing depending on number of coats and heat of the kiln, but i think it came out great. It has ended up with a very unusual finish.

Although all my mugs so far have gone to friends and have been test vehicles for me to practice glazing and with different colours, this mug was a true experiment. When it was poured it was using the last of my slip and it didnt fill the spare so i had to keep tipping the mold over and pouring slip around the top. Although the mug ended up its full size it ended up very thin at the top. For that reason i decided to keep it for myself to play with and i added some clay to make his nose bigger (compare with above) and also some Fu Manchu style bits to his beard/goatee. I also played around with the glazing. Initially i had painted the eyebrows and goatee black ang glazed the blue over the top hoping that the black would show through. ( The teeth and eyes were done in white as you can tell.) When it was fired the black didn't work how i wanted at all so i reglazed it again, and touched up a few other areas at the same time, and had it refired. This is how it came out.

I have to say i dont love it, the blue is very patchy and has bled into the white and there are a few places it has actually gone a green metallic colour, but the marbling effect that occured with the black after being refired is quite interesting and given me something to play around with on some other test glazes.

During the week i also bought some powdered glaze i mixed with water myself so i can practise dip glazing. I'm hoping that, besides being quicker than brushing it on it will also give me a far more even and consistant finish, which is what i'm really after. The colour at the front is Italian Blue and it is the dip glaze. It is also a crackle effect glaze. The green at the back is a brush on glaze called Italian Green that i dipped also just to see how that worked in comparison. When i dipped the blue you could see it left a coating on my test piece with a noticable edge, (You should really be able to see that in the pictures) whereas the green appeared to soak in. It was actually really interesting. You can see the edge in the second pic also. The #1 signifies it was dipped once and the #2 twice.

I'm looking forward to seeing how these come out and will post pics when i have them.

Love the Fu Manchu :lol: The red is indeed interesting, you probably couldn't do that again if you tried!

Hi Swizzle, I've not yet dipped but I did the Zombie Hut with a spray gun. It worked really well especially with three layers. I still poured the inside of the mug with glaze and drained out the excess.

When you do dipping you can also use wax resist. Paint the areas you want to use another color on. Dip, fire. The wax burns off. Paint those areas with your next color and fire again.

You are just like me doing all sorts of tests. If fun when you find something that you really like. I'm enjoying your journey, Wendy

Robbie, hope you don't mind BUT I had to post some pictures of the mug I received in the mail today, It's Awesome Brada!



I think the blue coming over the edge is an awesome look, I'm going to try and do a few like that next time..
Mahalo again!

[ Edited by: Beachbumz 2011-06-29 01:28 ]

MDM, you're laughing at the Fu Man Chu so i'm not sure what you mean by that :), but i agree with you that i'm sure i couldn't get that effect with red again if i tried.

Wendy, i'll be looking into the wax resist and below you will see my first test results with dipping. They generally say it's about the journey, not the destination, but i think with ceramics that might be a little bit different. :D

Scott, of course not. I have to steal them because i cant find the ones i took of it myself. :P So happy that YOU are happy with it. That blue coming over the edge was not intentional, but i have to say i do like it myself.

So anyway, i only picked up one glazed mug this week as i was busy doing other things so that was all i had time for, and guess what...............................................

it cracked. :(

This is the second mug to crack that is/will be going to someone in the U.S. (you'll find out later if i ever get it right :lol:) who asked for black on the inside and green on the outside. After the first mug shattered in the kiln and another using the same green -see previous posts- cracked, i decided to try another colour green. (I'll explain that below).

If anyone persists with this, thank you, because this will be a rant.
The first mug that cracked/shattered was glazed with (Cesco)Gloss Black on the inside with (Northcote Pottery)Peacock Green on the the outside. The second mug was glazed with (Cesco)Apple on the inside with the same (Northcote Pottery)Peacock Green on the outside. (Although this mug didn't crack after the first fire, it did not have the same colour as the first mug and was glazed again and then only cracked after the second fire. -See my previous posts to understand the colour difference-). After being glazed again it still didn't end up with the same colour.

This latest mug to crack was glazed with the same (Cesco)Gloss black on the inside with Italian Green(again, Northcote Pottery) on the outside. Both the peacock and italian greens are NOT supposed to be crackles (see below) yet both did that.

After having a look at all the mugs that cracked i noticed they all cracked in nearly the exact same spot, along the line (on the same side) of where the mold seperates. I understand that there might be a weak spot there but that doesn't explain why, of the thirteen mugs i have glazed so far, the three that have cracked were all green and all from the same supplier/manufacturer, yet every other mug has been fine. (The one mug i thought would crack had the same Gloss Black on the inside and was also fired TWICE).

I like the colour green and want to make some green mugs, but this is quite frustrating. If any mug makers could give me some feedback on their opinion on what might be going on, i'd appreciate it.

So anyway, if you're still with me, i glazed three more mugs this week, (one for a friend in green-but two completely different greens (both the same brand), another for a friend, just a test-he wants red and black- and i also did my first dip glazed mug this week- Wendy_.

I'll find out the mug results in a week or so, but here is my dip glaze results.

Again the #1 and #2 represents one dipping and two. The first is the (Northcote Pottery Italian Green) and you can see that there is a colour difference.
The darker colour on the right(#2) is what the sample looks like and the mug i glazed-with three coats-only shows that in patches. You can't tell by the photo but it has crazed and it is not supposed to do that. It still doesn't explain why the mug cracked.

The second glaze test shows a colour (Italian Blue)i thought was awesome, again #1 and #2 represents dipping results, and yet there is not much difference between the two.

The darker colour you can see at the bottom is a result of the the glaze settling as it dries and is obviously thicker but, to me is still the same colour.(It is a crackle effect).

I did my first test/drip glaze, on a mug, this week in this colour and will show the results when i can.

"MDM, you're laughing at the Fu Man Chu so i'm not sure what you mean by that..."

It's all good! I thought he was really cool and he made me smile :)

Mike

Well it's been a while since i last posted because my classes only resumed this week after a break for school holidays and the ceramics room had some renovating done to it so nothing had been fired. I was only able to pick up the following mugs the other day which i had glazed before the break.

This mug is going to a friend who asked for red and black. As i didn't want to use a lead based glaze on this one, the only real red to choose from was this colour. I think it came out pretty good.

Brick red outside, black on the inside.

This following mug is also for a friend whos favourite colour is green. This is the second attempt at a mug for them as, if you've been following my thread, you'll know that all the green mugs i've made so far have cracked. This time i decided to use the same brand of glaze to hopefully avoid that problem and thankfully it worked. I'm actually really happy with the way this one came out.

Apple green on the outside, avocado on the inside.

And finally a mug that was my first attempt at dip glazing. An absolutely beautiful colour with a crackle effect but, surprise, surprise, it cracked. Again it was a different brand than what i used on the inside so there was obviously a tension issue. It is quite noticable that the dipped glaze is quite thin compared to the inside. I might try dipping another mug with this colour but i'll do the inside also. I'll just have to glaze it with a clear over the top if i want to drink out of it.

Italian blue outside, and oyster speckle white inside.

I have four mugs glazed at school ready to be fired. Hopefully they'll be ready next week. Two of those have been glazed on the inside with a dip glaze i mixed myself. It is from the same supplier as the brush-on glaze i've used on the outside, so fingers crossed they come out in one piece.

Hi Swizzle, I've been mixing brands on top of each other and I"ll do Duncan on the inside and Mayco on the outside. As long as they are both 06 glazes I don't think that would be a problem that would cause a crack.

A tiny air bubble can crack a mug. When I am pouring my slip into the mold I am hitting the outside of the mold with a rubber mallet to move air to the top and out. I've never had anything crack.

I do always fire at a slow ramp which may not be available to you in class. I also always hold for 15 minutes at the end of bisque fire to make sure the object gets to shrink its maximum amount.

Your mugs are terrific so I hope you can solve this problem. (: Wendy

Hey Swizzle, It's really cool to see you sticking with it! Clay is addicting!!

One reason that cracks like that can occur is if you pool too much of the glaze on the bottom inside of the mug. The shallower thickness of the glaze on the inside side walls transitioning to the thicker glaze on the bottom inside can cause tension as you mention as the glaze is curing after the firing is complete, resulting in a sharp crack like the one shown. Just try holding that mug upside down a little longer when your pouring out the glaze. Make sure that when you set the mug back down on the table, glaze isn't running down the side walls and pooling. Hope that helps some...even if for some reason, the above mentioned, isn't the problem here with your mug, it's still a good thing to know. :)

The green apple mug turned out great - love the color! (Have you decided on a color for the edition?)

Nice one's Swizzle, I like the colors, that green is nice sorry about the crack man..
Babalu, so right.. It seems that I get a crack when the glaze on the bottom of the mug was possibly to thick.. I'm trying now to make sure to drain the excess slip as much as possible now, hopefully that's going to help my crack problem..
Any box yet??:)
Aloha

Thanks for your feedback guys.

Wendy, those brands are not ones that i'm familiar with. I'm not sure they are available here. Also, what do you mean by 06 glazes? Does that have something to do with cones?

Babalu, thank you for giving me some of your expertise. That information you have given me i will definitely make sure i'm aware of and try to avoid doing it on other mugs, but for some reason i think it has to do with the different brands.
So far i have glazed and fired 15 mugs. On all of those mugs i have poured the inside with a brush-on glaze and drained the excess out. Three mugs have used a particular brand (Clayworks) on the inside which has been the same brand used on the outside of two, and every other mug has used the brand available to me at school (Cesco) on both the inside and outside. A couple of mugs have been a combination of those two. (Beachbumz, the outside of your mug was those two brands mixed together). Of the four mugs that have cracked all used Cesco on the inside but the glaze on the outside has been a different brand all together again. I think i'm going to stick to the same brand/supplier for the moment and hope i don't have any more problems.

Beachbumz, if you have had that problem too i am certainly going to address that issue.

And Eric, thanks. I really like the Apple Green myself and have decided i'll be doing version 2.0 in that colour. I haven't decided on the inside colour yet though.

Hi Swizzle, yes 06 is the cone required to fire the glazes I use. All my glazes are for 06. I learned something from this thread. I've always left my mugs etc. upside down to drain for a long time so maybe that's why I've not had cracks. May you never have another one! Wendy

Thanks Wendy, i hope i dont have any more cracked mugs either. It's quite annoying.

Fortunately the following mugs didn't crack. This first mug i've sold to the guy who will be doing the resin castings of the skull and the moai gear stick shifter i made which you can see on page 4. He wanted a dark purple with black on the inside. The glazing is a little patchy but the colour is nice. My local ceramic supplier doesn't have a brush on purple so i just bought a blue and red and mixed them together. I might add a touch of white to it next time. The black on the inside is also a little uneven up near the top. This mug was the first mug i poured glaze into which i mixed myself. I bought a clear glaze powder to which i added a black stain and water. As it is thinner than the brush on glazes it poured out a lot faster and it didn't cover as evenly. It taught me something new for the next mug i glaze.

These next two mugs will be gifts to the owners of our only Tiki bar here in Melbourne. Her favourite colour is purple and his is green, so i figured that i would glaze the inside of her mug green and his purple. I also thought it appropriate that she gets the smaller mug as she is a petite little thing herself. Same purple as above and lime green. I really liked the apple green mug i made a couple of weeks ago, but this lime is much nicer.

I do have another mug to post pics of but that will have to wait until it arrives at its new owners. I don't want to spoil the surprise. :)

Swizz, you have made me appreciate the abundance and availability of glaze products we have here in the US. My nearest ceramic store is 120 miles away but I make it over there occasionally and they have a wide variety of Duncan glazes. If I need something they don't carry or I don't feel like making the drive I can order it on the internet and have it in less than a week.

Keep at it Swizzle! Ceramics has so many variables as it is, adding unpredictable glazes doesn't help any!

G'day everyone, it's been a while since i've posted.

I've only glazed a few mugs in the time that i last posted and since then i've found a new glaze supplier with some awesome colours so i'm looking forward to see how they look/work on the half dozen or so mugs i have bisqued ready to experiment on.

This first mug i glazed a while ago but didn't post the pics for a reason. I was waiting for Kahuna Kevin to finish his book, and now that he has, go and support him by buying one, or preferably, both of his great cocktail books and check out my mug and the drink, made and named after me ("rat" is my intitals).

Lime green and black as requested by Kevin.

Here it is in the book with drink and garnish.

Next is a mug for a friend whose result i really wasn't happy with so i'm going to make it for him again. This was the first mug i tried to dip glaze. I bought some glaze powder and colour to which i added water and although the colours worked out OK, the outside has a couple of blemishes which might be hard to see with the reflections. The inside however, which i mixed myself the same way as the black, has some strange spotting which i was told happened due to dust on the surface which prevented the glaze from sticking. (I will now be blowing the crap out of all mugs before glazing with the airgun at work). :) Dip glazing is a technique that will work well to get an even coverage, but after doing it once it has taught me a lot on how to get a better finish. Until i work it out, that's a secret. :D

Black and peacock green.

This next mug is a glazed in a colour i mixed myself. Another dip glazed mug, i'm extremely happy with the finish, however......it's now only good for display :(. There is a long story as to why this mug is broken which i won't go into. Let's just say it's an animals fault.

Equal mix of red and blue (my local supplier do not have a purple).

OK, this is where i'm at at the moment. I have made a run of 3 woodgrain mugs with the same colours. Although each mug has one, maybe two, blemishes (on the inside), i'm very happy with how they turned out. I'm going to reglaze and refire, ONE mug to see how it turns out, and if it's OK i'll do the other two. These mugs are for sale. Please PM me if you are interested. Just a warning, postage from Australia to the U.S. is $30aus. Plus the cost of the mug.

Rockingham brown with peacock green interior.
The interior.

Mug 1.

Mug 2.

Mug 3.

That's it for the meantime. I really hope the new glazes i have work out and look good. As it's Christmas, everyone is having a break so it will be a little while until i see the results of my new test glazes. I hope everyone has their fingers crossed for me.

Have a good holiday season, here from down under.
Robbie

Christmas in the summertime? Hmm... seems odd! :D

The peacock and woodgrain is a very nice combo. A lot of times you can brush a couple more coats more glaze over those glaze skips and refire and it will be fine. I have have pieces where I did that more than once and eventually got complete coverage.

Have fun with your new glazes Swizz

Hi Swizzle, I just finished scrubbing and cleaning my glaze skips which were most likely caused by invisible dust specks. Then I did three layers of glaze and tonight I'll fire again. MDM's right it works but sometimes takes several times. It's a bummer but in the end the art is saved.

You come up with some really beautiful glazes. I like your purple.

I'm sending you a long overdue PM. Wendy

Bitchin' mugs Robbie! Thanks again for making a custom 1-off for me. So when do you start mass producing them and where can we buy them?

Nice work mate, some great colour combos

Thanks everyone for the compliments.

Well i finally glazed a few more mugs with the new brand glazes i recently purchased. They have 38 colours available and i have 6 at the moment. There's definitely a lot more i want to buy as there are some very nice colours to choose from.

First is the replacement mug for the black one in one of my previous posts. The mug was a gift for a friends 40th and i wasn't happy with how the black one turned out, there were a few blemishes, so i made another.(* denotes new brand)

Light Jade* exterior and Peacock Green inside.

The following two mugs are for a friend and his partner who live interstate. He requested green and she purple, so for these two instead of using the same colours on both mugs as i had previously on the mugs for the owners of the Tiki Bar and Lounge i used two different greens and two different purples to mix it up a bit. I'm very happy with how Brett's mug turned out however Jo's mug has a small patch on the inside where the glaze didn't take, you can see that in the photo. I'll only reglaze it if he really wants me to. It's not something you can see when it's sitting on the shelf. :D Unfortunately the brushstrokes are still quite noticable also but it is a great colour. Both mugs have their respective names carved into the back.

Paris Green* and the Purple i mixed myself that i have used several times before.

Mauve* exterior and Peacock Green inside.

So far all the mugs i have made i've given to friends except one that i sold to an aquaintance. This mug i'll also sell to an aquaintance who saw my post on Facebook and said he'd like one. He runs a cafe and everything in there is green, so naturally that's what colour he requested.

Paris Green* again with Lime Green.

Now this last mug has a bit of story to it which i won't go into because it'll take forever to write. :lol: It is going to a friend who lives in Arizona and who's favourite colour is pink. It is because of her i was trying to find a nice pink that i came across the company online that i got all these new glazes from. This mug was a bit of an experiment as i tried to get a different texture on the mug, similar yet different to the woodgrain ones i've made. I couldn't really stop after i had started so it wasn't until i had finished that i thought to myself, "It looks like it has the measles". But after picking it up today i'm quite happy with how it looks now that it has been glazed. In the photo it looks like it's darker at the bottom and fades up but it's not actually like that, it's probably just from the lighting.

Dusky Pink* and my pre-mixed Purple.

That's it for now. I have another mug to pick up next week that i'm really looking forward to seeing and hoping it comes out OK. It has a crystal glaze on the inside and needs to be fired at a lower temperature so it needs to go in with a bisque firing which they didn't do this week. I'll obviously post pics of it when i get it back.
Until then, cheers.
swizzle

[ Edited by: swizzle 2012-02-24 00:15 ]

Purple, way cool

Very cool Swizzle! I like the measle style, I did a couple in that style myself..:wink:
That mauve combination mug and the light jade really looks good too.. It's fun playing around with the glaze color's you never know what your going to get sometimes unless you do a bunch of glaze test on them..

The Light Jade looks like it has some iridescence to it and the pink one looks like coral, cool! I hope this solves your glaze problems.

Hi Swizzle, I wrote a note and it disapeared. Here goes again. Great glazes. I love seeing these colors on real tiki mugs instead of a chip at the store. Your purple is wonderful. No mention of cracks so you must be having much more fun than before. Thanks for posting. Cheers, Wendy

Robbie, really fine work on those glazes. Like Beachbumz, I especially like the Mauve exterior in combination with the Peacock Green interior.

-Tom