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"Copper Red" is a glaze that goes back centuries, always regarded as beautiful but difficult (some people are like that, too). You'd think at first that the colour was due to some kind of dye or pigment, but not so. When the glaze is first mixed, it's white, not red. It contains just a trace of copper, less than 1%, usually as copper carbonate, and it has to be applied much more thickly than for most other glazes. To get the red colour, it has to be fired in a reducing atmosphere (too much gas, not enough air). There's still some disagreement about whether the final colour is due to microscopic particles of a form of copper oxide, or particles of the metal itself (which seems more convincing). Whichever is true, the quest to get this glaze just right, every time, has occupied a lot of potters for a long time. Each little picture is the link to a larger one, of course. |
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