The Base Glaze

Glaze is a glass.  Think of the base glaze as the basic glass before we add "additives" like colour etc.  Below is a set of base glazes.

Limestone (Calcium) Set:

1_0.7LCn10R_Dark1200px.jpg - on Dark Clay

Adding colour etc.

We zero-in on the base glaze first because it is the main factor in things like matt or shiny, runny or stiff, transparent or opaque, crazed or uncrazed, and many other properties.  Then we can add colour and other additives if we wish.  If we take the set of glazes illustrated above we can obtain the sets below by adding 5% of iron oxide to each glaze (brown set) or 1% of cobalt carbonate (blue set).

Limestone (Calcium) Set with Iron Oxide or Cobalt Carbonate Added:

5_0.7L+5FeCn10R_Dark1200px.jpg

3_0.7L+1CoCn10R_Dark1200px.jpg