Firing Egyptian paste cone 04, 1940°F/1060°C

Opening a kiln is a kin to payday. Open that envelope, there in find exactly what you've work for. Every now and then it's short or there's a bonus, either way you find yourself investigating why. It's kind of nice when firings go as planned.

Looking so generic going in, then turning brilliant coming out, it always surprises. It's the same as glaze firing, but you skipped one step (actually 2 steps, the bisque and the glaze application).

Firing hotter just to see what would change is a bit of a let down. The differences in color were only slight, possibly nonexistent.

Here is Proof that Thicker Paste forms Thicker Glaze

Make a ball of Egyptian paste then cut it into two equal halfs; take one of your halfs and divided it in half again. So now you have one half and two fourths made from your original ball of Egyptian paste. Taking one of your fourths and rolling it into a ball and joining the remaining fourth to the half yielding two balls of Egyptian paste, one being three times more volume than the other. Press these into a button form, dry and fire them to cone 04 (approximately 1000°C) and now you have what is pictured here.

The button on the left is one third the volume of that on the right. Both buttons started with the same surface details. However the larger one developed so much more glaze that it obscured /flooded the texture. Photographing on a dollar bill should give you perspective on both size, detail and color.

These two buttons were fired along side one another in the kiln; the reason that is mention is that placement in the kiln also effects the glaze. However, this is a subject for another post later on. The unfired Egyptian Paste or 'greenware', as potters call it, shows an even deep texture than the fired ware.

For now we have our first little fact for the behavior of Egyptian paste. Fact #1. The larger the volume of paste, the thicker the glaze. Well that is one fact down, 99 more to go!

Bluetooth Beads!

Continuing with the excitement from the last kiln firing here's an image of something that went right. Turned out well both front and back. This is a rather simple bead to make just time consuming. An IBM Selectric typewriter element is used to give a sort of modern hieroglyphics; you can see the individual characters impressed on the beads if you look for them. Too bad there is not a Greek character ball in the studio texture toybox.

With a few spacer beads the Faience beads are strung on monofilament/fishing line temporarily, just to get an idea how they would look. They sure would be lovely strung with copper beads. We will call them “Bluetooth Beads”!

The bottom/backsides of these beads have no glaze on them, because there was no evaporation from that side, and therefore no salts could accumulate on the surface forming the glaze. That is the efflorescence in action that was mentioned in an earlier post. They were fired sitting flush against the kiln shelf. An aluminum hydrate shelf primer kept sticking to a minimum; sticking really wasn't a problem with this Egyptian paste recipe. The unglazed portion feels like a fine grain sandpaper or etched glass. The glaze side is a rather matte glaze smooth to the touch.

Firing Egyptian Paste, Houston We have FAIENCE!!

Opening a fired Egyptian paste kiln is one of the more exciting occasions in the studio. You always know you will get some little gifts. If you're like I am you will have an experiment or two running. So there's going to be some disappointments too. I really shouldn't call them disappointments; we need to think of them as learning experiences. There's serendipity too!

This last Egyptian paste kiln firing was no exception to the excitement rule. The paste goes in the kiln so nondescript and comes out so vivid. There were some surprises. Just 2.5 percent pansy purple mason stain yielded a much deeper color than expected; I can cut that down to 1% in future firings. The base recipe for Egyptian paste without colorant came out a pale gray, nearly white. I imagine with the addition of tin oxide or zinc oxide a true white may be obtained. That is the basis for another future experiment. I had a few experiments going on in this kiln that will be covered later on. For now, I can say that over all I was pleased with this firing.

My bead island performed marvelously as expected. The beads came off quite easily. Of course there was a layer of shelf primer on the peaks to keep the bead holes from sticking. Painting them with a layer of wax resist will keep the salts/fluxes from being absorbed by the clay of the island. In this firing, I neglected to do this wax coating and yet there was little sticking.

This firing was cone 06, that's about 1800 Fahrenheit/1000°C. A cone firing is a measure of work done by heat rather than temperture; the cone is formulated to melt at a certain temperature so when it bends the kiln is said to have reach temperature. Were I firing by pryrometer I would probably have to hold the kiln at temperature. Most potters just fire up to cone 06 then shut the kiln off. In my case, the “kiln sitter” shuts the kiln off. My next firing I'm going to try taking the kiln up one cone hotter to see if I can get the paste to flux a little bit more. More variation in the color would be nice. The the beads look a little too controlled, not enough like the ancient Faience. Even so, some of the ancient Faience is this turquoise.

Egyptian Paste Bead Firing

Here is what I use to fire Egyptian paste beads in my electric kiln. This apparatus, a "bead island", is made of porcelain or any high fired clay for that matter; I like the B-mix clay body for this piece of kiln furniture, because it forms a thin point very easily. Once fired the bead island can be used many times. It's coated with two or three layers of kiln wash before each use. If it breaks I just make another..
Using the bead islands, allows me to form the bead from Egyptian paste, place it onto the tip of one of these peaks to dry and fire without ever having to touch it directly. Handling Egyptian paste after it dries would damage glaze that forms on the bead as it dries.

For smaller hole beads nichrome wire is used in my islands.

How can clay self-glaze? Efflorescence, that's how!

Every week I will introduce one little nuance on Egyptian paste. At this rate, we will acquire 52 characteristics of Egyptian paste in a year. Theoretically, anyone who can name 52 characteristics of Egyptian paste is somewhat of a master on the subject, no?
Moving on, efflorescence, is the term this week. I would describe it as a wicking of the salts in the Egyptian paste to the surface as it dries. The Egyptian paste has soluble salts in it; that is salts that are dissolved in water.
Here is an image of our miniature milking stool again; both before and after the firing to cone 06 (about 1000 C. degrees). It’s hard to see and photograph, but in the before picture there is a powder on the surface. The powder is like growing salt crystals. I’ll try to get a close-up photograph of the surface next time I fire a load of paste.

Working in Egyptian Paste

If Egyptian Paste is defined as self-glazing clay then this blog will consist of my adventures of trying to create with it. More than likely more pictures will be posted here rather than text, because pictures tend to be self-explanatory. It is hoped by sharing ideas, techniques and problems in working Egyptian paste with you that it will aid me in understanding this media.

I should sidebar here to say that Egyptian paste is not true clay but rather pulverized glass; it's about as pliable as wet sand. To the right is a little three-legged stool I formed (from a recipe I shall divulge further down the blog). I haven't learned how to put captions on pictures yet, but that won't stop me from enclosing them just now.
Furthermore, why the antiquities of this media are labeled Faience is beyond my comprehension. Faience is a majolica pottery made in the town Faenza, Italy. I visited that town years back and noticed that Egyptian paste looks nothing like Faience. I've read that the Egyptians themselves referred to it as "tjehnet"; a Google search on tjehnet will yield a few of the artifacts but the same search on faience will overwhelm one. In researching Egyptian paste numerous archaeological references were discovered, but little in actually working the "clay". Therefore this blog is to be the first comprehensive guide in working with Egyptian paste. Only you will be working alongside me as I discover this trail.