Mug-a-ga-looza

  The glaze on these little trees was intended to be quite a bit different.  So 8 mugs have virtually no red iron oxide stain showing.  It was pretty evident when originally painted.

But the first problem to happen, having painted RIO stain and then some black copper carbonate stain (the green) and the mint green leaves, (which is a glaze pen)...I put the black highlights on with another glaze pen.  They went on smoothly.

I looked at the first one as I had finished the last.  And the little strings of black were peeling away from the body.  I tried reattaching them with a bit of wet brush.  Nah.  So the next trick was to knock them off, before putting clear on the exterior surfaces.  That kind of worked, as you can see, there are just some strings of black left.  I really didn't want them peeling off in the kiln and leaving glaze all over the shelves!

I put the white satin liner inside, then brushed clear glaze over most of the outside, with some touches of white as well.  Then poured clear over what was left of the trees.  They still had plenty of brown, though the black pen had crashed and burned.

A few days later, I find these rather big mistakes all over the place after the glaze firing (cone 6, which all the glazes were ok for).  Where oh where did the Red Iron go?  And what's going on with a glaze pen that I've used successfully before?

I went to Highwater the next day, asking about the glaze pen.  Admitting it is a year old...  And that the mugs had been washed quickly about half an hour before I did the painting.  The 2 oxide stains and the green pen had all been applied before the black one which didn't stick.

I am going to run a test of 3 pots with the same clay, and check if dry, wet, or slightly damp could have been the problem.  I hope Highwater will find out if there's a binder or something that could have gone bad in the year since my purchase.

ANy other thoughts?