So I am going for this faire and I can’t wait. I am so exited to show some of the new stuff I have been working on.
So the car is almost packed, and only a few minor things like price tags, shelves etc, then I am good to go.
Mostly I look forward to seeing my family and friends – its been so long.
If you happen to be in the area, please stop by and say hi, that would make my day
So the second day of the course finally arrived and I was very excited to see the results of the last course's many tests.
We worked with everything from stains (blue) to Tinoxide, Magnesium, Siliciumcarbid, Rutil to strotiumcarbonate (don't know the english words for them), but they are all very determining for the outcome of the glaze process.
The tests were done with a mix of lets say 16% tinoxide and 5% stain or similar.
Below is the full test from all nine participants. (Sorry its in danish).
I learnes so much on these course days and the day was over before we knew it.
I can highly recommend taking a course to learn the key elements of glazing and to learn how to test properly and structured.
I really had to engage my very hidden and far to seldom used math skils, if you could even call them skills - I would probably call them basic survival skils, as I am hopeless in that area. So I stick to the basics and the safer selections as I am mostly fan of the glazed that are either pastel colored mat or shiny and I really like the transparent glaze as well.
The standard recipe for a good alround glaze that fires at 1240 degrees celcius:
Nepheline syenite 40%, Kaolin E 10%, Whites/kridt 20%, Quartz/kvarts 30%
To that you can add stains (max 7%) and oxids and flux/flus
Looking at the picture you can then determine what will happen.
So the top row is either Blue stain on the left side, or a mix og blue stain and titanium in the middle and titanium only on the right side. The middle one is ½ of each and then 1/3 or 3/1 on each side of the middle.
I hope that makes sense.
It did for me and I am now ready for testing glazes next week at Thoras workshop in Frederiksværk. Yay
Have a great day ahead
/Sys
This weekend was a big thing for me - I was attending an advanced glazing course downtown Copenhagen at Keramikskolen with instructor Tine Seier.
I have worked with glazing before and find it very confusing and somewhat technically challenging and I wanted to improve my skills so that I can start making my own glazes or enhance store-bought glazes.
To sum up the course - day 1 was yesterday and the curriculum was to get the theories behind glazes right and then test the different flux components and additives to get different results. Day 2 is in a couple of weeks and will be a detailed deep dive into the different components and additives - pro's and cons and how to see and correct flaws or imperfections in the finished products.
SO overall most glazes and this is just the general assumption to make it easier to get started, consists of 4 different components.
Feltspar, Clay/Kaolin, Quartz Flux, stain/oxide
The above components are powders that are mixed with water in different measurements and then a glaze is formed. There are plenty of recipes online and there are so many factors that influence the final result.
If you like me are fairly new to this, my instructor advised me to stick to the basics before moving to the more experimental fluxes and additives.
Once we had the basics set, we started working on mixing our own glaze samples.
As we were 9 people, we were able to make one standard glaze each and then add different additives like Mg, stains or TiO to see how the different glazes react when exposed to different additives. So in total we each made 10 samples of a standard glaze + 10 different additives, that will be fired at 1245 degrees and I can't wait to get my hands on them next time we meet.
Safety is a big thing when working with glazes and we go quite a lot of information on toxidity and what to avoid and how to stay safe - I can very much recommend taking a class to ensure that you don't do something that might effect your health longterm.
So masks on - gloves on and no food/drinks in the room.
Thats all from me for now
See you tootles later
/Sys
I have been in IT for more than 20 years now and I am not in any way an expert on webshops, online presence and all the SoMe lingo - BUT let me just give you a brief overview of all the things you need to consider if you want success online and google is a key player in that.
Now there are more than enough YouTube tutorials out there for each of the subjects below, but it is kind of hard to find your way around the different subjects if you are no expert.
You don't have to to pay big bucks to get started, but you do need to put in some time to learn the basic terms and its a good idea to go through the list from step 1 and onwards, as you may need some of the outcome of a previous step to go ahead with the next.
Find a domain name (www.name.com search page, and see if your desired brand name is available as a URL. E.g creativecph.com. There are many services that provide this out there - here is one. https://instantdomainsearch.com/. Owning a domain name, will cost you xx money per year. Make sure you pay for this on time, otherwise you can loose your whole brand if someone else takes it.
It can be a .com or any other you prefer, prices vary depending on what you chose.
Once you have your domain name - you need to purchase a webhotel. Its just tech for a place where all your data (pictures, videos/product descriptions) etc. are stored. I use wordpress.com, as it is both cheap, comes with both webshop options and website templates for easy use. But you can google "webhotel" and see other options.
Design your webpage - if you have tech skills you can build it online, if you don't have tech skills, draw your webpage on paper and ask for help to build it from someone or go nuts in the sea of how to videos.
Most larger webhotel provides have templates and plug and play options available so you can start up quickly.
Webshop - if you want a webshop, there are several things to consider. I would strongly advice you to hook up with a tech person if this is what you want. Here you have to consider GDPR rules, security certificates, payment options etc. if you are up for the challenge, there are plenty of how to videos, but be careful as personal data and payment gateways can cost you heavy fines if not handled correctly.
Note: Once you have a webshop, you can request a instagram business account so promote your products.
Set up instagram account/TikTok/Youtube/facebook etc. Make sure to use your brand and logo. Link them all to your webpage
Don't use your private account for this.
IMPORTANT- Create a google business account - This is key to get attention and traffic on your webpage. Get help for this or use on of the million YouTube tutorials like this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81nhmYRTYZM
Set up what is called SEO. Its a way of structuring your website so that google can find the content easier and make sure that when people search for anything related to your site, it comes first in the search results. Again - watch some videos - its not brain surgery. You can do this. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpwD50v0Ubo
Start creating content such as blog posts, videos, products etc. and make sure you use the SEO plugins that area available for your website. I am actually doing it right now as I type this post, so that it will be easier for you guys to find it.
This is it for now - if you can get thorugh this list - you are well on your way to having an online presence.