Fake Traditional Chinese Materials Blends

Using chemical analyses and US materials, I recreated traditional Chinese materials like porcelain stone, glaze stone, and glaze ash.  Limiting myself to these "fake" materials, I blended them to create porcelain bodies and glazes.

Here are two line blends of fake Sanbao Porcelain Stone and fake Yaoli Glaze Stone blended with fake Glaze Ash.  While both of these traditional materials could be called "porcelain stone", Sanbao Porcelain Stone is commonly used in porcelain clay bodies while Yaoli Glaze Stone is most commonly used to make glazes.  Glaze Ash is a material resulting from burning layers of limestone and a special type of fern-like plant (lang ji cao) found in the mountains around Jingdezhen.

For each blend, about 80% Porcelain Stone and 20% Glaze Ash results in a beautiful celadon glaze.  Increasing the amount of Glaze Ash tends towards a calcium matte glaze, while decreasing the ash tends towards a beautiful self-glazing stone-like glaze/body.  These tests were fired to Orton cone 10 in a reduction atmosphere.

For more information, see Nigel Wood's "Chinese Glazes", Chapter 3, "The Porcelain Glazes of Southern China".