Yeah no problem!

I would like to make a post about it but I never find myself at my desktop (can things please stop happening 😭) so here is a quick version:

The letters mean:

• R = recycled clay (labeling the clay type, it’s my home brew recycle)
• upsidedown V 6 = this is supposed to be △6 which is the firing temp of the clay.
• 1043 = 10.43 g of stain per 100 g wet clay. I wrote down the actual measures on my notebook but I wanted to normalize it to 100g for the future.

The second row of numbers represents the % of the stained clay mixed with the unstained clay, by mass. So the one with “10” means 10 g stained clay and 90g unstained clay.

This captures the process I used and I can later go back and calculate the amount of stain I need for a given colour when I decide what I want.

The reason I am making test tiles is that I have no idea what the stain is going to look like! Ideally, you make test tiles for every combo of clay/firing program/glaze/glaze application/combination of glazes. Even the way heat is distributed in your kiln based on your packing habits makes an impact but that’s harder to make tiles for lol.

I don’t have a complete set and also mine are ugly so here are some examples from other people:

https://www.wildbowerstudio.com/journal/mason-stain-library

This person stained slip not clay (don’t worry about the difference, it’s just different) and used tbsp to measure but same idea. She doesn’t say but I am pretty sure the left is bare and the right is clear glazed. I will glaze my tiles on one side, but the whole face of the rectangle not half like she’s done here. The back side will be unglazed 😊

http://www.ccpottery.com/colored-clay-lessons--chris/how-to-color-clay-with.html

This is someone’s recipe chart showing how different colours are made.

The reason testing is so important is that pottery is expensive, takes forever, and you are making things that aren’t going to break down, except into smaller, broken pottery.

I am a hobbyist with a giant kiln so I will go months between when I throw a pot and when it’s finally done. Each step takes such a long time, and I only fire on weekends, etc.

If I don’t make test tiles I will just guess and then if I don’t like it guess again and see the results in another few months… Or I can make better decisions based on these tests before I put in all the effort to something that looks wrong or isn’t suitable. I’ve glazed fired twice in my kiln and I can see that the manganese in my speckled clay does not play well with certain glazes leading to items that are not food safe and that the kiln is firing a little hot so I might try a different program. Some pots came out unusable because of these things and I didn’t know until I did it. Some of that is unavoidable but a lot can be figured out with test tiles.

Hope this helped!