First Steps to a Sponged Wax Resist Decoration

In this demonstration, the application tool is a round sponge shape with a flat end, which is mounted on a wooden handle. These sponge tools are very useful in creating round shapes easily and lend themselves to the idea I had in mind as I began.

I first sorted out three sizes of round sponge tools that I had on hand. I then made certain the pot I would be decorating was clean: grease- and dust-free.

The third of my preliminary steps was to chose the glazes I would use for the pot.

After waxing the pot's foot, I pour-glazed the interior of the pot with Amaco PC cone six Rutile Blue glaze. I then used the smallest of the round sponge tools to apply spots or dots of wax resist around the pot, just below its rim's circumference, leaving enough room between them so that the spots left by the largest sponge tool would have plenty of room between each other.

As you can see in the photo, in order to leave a perfectly round spot, you need to keep the flat end of the sponge tool perpendicular to the surface you are applying the wax on.

After the first application of wax resist had dried, I then applied a Moroccan Sands series, Sahara Desert (which appears to have been discontinued by Laguna Clay Company). Sahara Desert is a stony matte orange glaze. I applied the glaze using the largest of the round sponge tools, roughly centering each glaze spot over the wax resist spot.

Directly after applying the glaze to all the spots, I cleaned the wax resist of all remaining glaze that was left on it with a cotton swab.

I then again waited, this time for the glaze coat to dry.

Once the glaze was dry, I applied a third layer to the mix, a second spot of wax resist, centered on the original wax resist spot. I used the middle-sized round sponge tool, so that this spot of wax resist covered the first and also covered some of the matte glaze.

After the new wax had dried, I then applied an overall coat of Amaco's PC Shino glaze to the outside. Immediately after glazing, I wiped the wax resist spots clean using a cotton swab. If needed, moisten the end of the swab with some water. Do not leave glaze on top of the wax resist. It may fall onto the kiln shelf as the wax melts, or the glaze may adhere to the pot in unwanted places.

The culmination of this process was the firing.

I fired to cone six in an electric kiln. As I had desired, the use of the wax resist with the two glazes created a bull's eye-like effect: an inner ring of unglazed clay, a second ring of the plain stony matte glaze, a third ring of the overlap between the shino and the matte glazes, and finally the background of the shino glaze.