Hello all! Okay so I’m super excited to write this blog, and share with you all how I bubble glaze my pieces! Bubble glazing gives a beautiful, almost marbled look to my pieces, and I’ve been experimenting with it since my sophomore year. This is a technique I found on Pinterest quite a while ago, and altered with time. I have been yearning to make more bubble glazed pieces, so keep an eye out for them in my posts! Here we go…

Materials needed:

Piece of pottery, 2 glazes, small container, straw, hand soap, turn table.

Step 1: Find two glazes with a high contrast in color and shade. This is imperative, otherwise you won’t be able to see the traces of the bubbles after firing. I always use a shiny white glaze (leach white) and our black glaze (waxy black), which is usually matte, but gets a nice sheen when layered on top of the white. It is also imperative that the second, darker glaze, is potent. By that I mean, most glazes need a sufficient amount in order not to turn brown. Generally, brushing on any glaze would result in a brown piece- with Waxy black, this glaze is so potent, that even when applied thinly, you still are able to see the black coloring.

Step 2: Glaze your entire piece with the lighter glaze (white, in my case). I generally do 1-2 dips of this glaze, depending if I want the iron of the clay to come through or not. Most of the time I dip my pieces, this is usually because I’m too lazy to use the spray booth- plus dipping is quick!

Step 3: Prepare the darker glaze. I fill up a small yogurt cup about 1/4 of the way (barely). It is important to consider that once you use this glaze to bubble glaze, it can not be re-poured into the bucket with the remaining glaze, it would contaminate it. With this being said, I use the glaze sparingly so that I’m careful not to waste any. Now, I put a small amount of hand soap in the container! 1-2 pumps does the job just fine- I don’t want to add too much because this would dilute the glaze and make it less powerful.

Step 4: Now, I put my piece on a spinning turntable. I mix the glaze with a straw, and blow bubbles! I blow until bubbles start falling up and over the yogurt cup, onto my piece. Once one side of my pot is covered, I spin the turn table to ensure my entire pot gets some bubbly goodness!

Step 5: Wipe the bottom, and you’re done! Check out my short little video below to see the process!