Round Two: Piggy Banks with stained clay and glazes

Well - my first go at using coloured clay in an actual item finally came and went . It was so exciting getting the coloured piggy banks out of the kiln! As I made them, the percentages of stain in each clay body didn't really look like much but once fired with a clear glaze over them - they looked fab!

What was really upsetting about the entire exercise was the costing of the pigs with stains inclusive! After punching through my numbers, pigs with NO stain cost 3/4 less to make than those with stains!

As Joe and I had already agreed a per pig price prior to use of stains, my profit margin shrunk by a third when I added them in! No good for me!

Luckily, the results of some glaze tests with stains in them also came out of the kiln at the same time as the pigs! I had tested 2, 5, and 10% stain additions in two white base glazes. One didn't take the stains at all, but the other really reacted!

I tested green, a pink, blue and yellow - here are the results! I LIKE!

When examining the costs of adding these to the glaze instead of the clay, it worked out to be a far cheaper alternative! Joe ended up liking the results as well, so to save costs we decided to go forward with the coloured glazes.

The only thing left to do now is see how my new ceramic transfers with Joe's company's logo that I ordered from Ceramic Digital will look on top of coloured backgrounds!