Today I am writing about Mayco Elements . I've only gotten four shades of this line, but I am planning to buy more. One thing that is really nice about them is that they are non-toxic. Another nice thing is that they have an incredible depth to them that creates a look beyond the Jr. High School Art Class look.
My first example is Blue Grotto . If you followed that link you saw sort of a darkish blue. Now look at this:
and this:
Both are Blue Grotto on Indian Red Clay. The second piece was actually glaze fired 3 times. The stilts were chipping some of the glaze off the bottom and I didn't like it. Notice how it developed into more of a green shade. Also, notice how the glaze likes to settle into recesses.
The next color is Stormy Blue . Basically on the tile it looks kind of like a steel blue, sort of chalky.
In my case the piece became a gorgeous caramel shade. The stormy blue shade actually worked into the recesses on the birds. The base was the Indian Red Clay again.
On this piece there is a bit more of the blue showing through. This bird was created in white versa clay.
Here is a color called Iron Moss . In the online tile pictures it looks very metallic but from my experience it's much more mossy than irony.
Notice how nicely it sinks into the design and highlights. This is also on a base of red clay.
Iron Moss on white clay. This is a bit thinner of an application. Three coats seems to yield best results (as stated on the bottle as well).
Last of all Patina . Now this one seems to be right on, easy to duplicate the results.
This is on a brown stoneware clay.
On white clay....
Annnnnd...raku fired. I plan to work much more with this as a raku glaze.
I hope this helps others out. Please feel free to ask if you have any questions.
