Iron chromate Breakthrough

For those of you who have been following the blog you will know I have been messing with a new (to me) colorant called Iron chromate. Must like chrome oxide it is a green mineral that when mixed with low levels of tin can create what most of us use as Tin Chrome pink/red/purple but with a small amount of Iron in the compound . The lesson learned from the last iron chromate line test taught me the amount of chrome isn't really the ending factor in how bright the tin chrome glazes come out, It’s the tin. He smallest amount of tin added to the chrome can turn the glaze from a dark purple to a bright pink; Truly, the addition of tin from a 0.2 % to 0.4% can mean an entirely different glaze. So of course the next thing to do was to see if the amount of chrome (in my case Iron chromate) made a difference at all. It did of course. The test tile below is 2.5% iron chromate and 1.5% Tin ox. bisqued at cone 04 (I usually do 08) and fired to cone 6 ox, non edited, just sunlight.

This test tile (as are almost of my test tiles) is dipped twice. The first dip is all the way down while the second is about half way down to simulate what the glaze would look like if it were either thicker or double dipped. If I get better color this often means I should decrease the amount of water in the recipe. Notice the blue hues while I added no contact or anything of the sort.

- Back of test tile- Notice the hues of blue I'm getting just from 2-3% of the glaze. I forget how much work iron truly does in a glaze. Iron, in the right amounts, can make anywhere from green to blue to red, yellow, and so on.

This little bit of blue here gives me massive hope for a future glaze. The ket here is to hone in the amount of tin so the glaze gets just enough breakage without over saturating it with the vibrate color of purple/ pink. I’m sure someone else knows of this mineral and its depth but this is all very new to me so I am very excited. A personal breakthrough.