I took an “Egyptian Faience” class from THL Li Xia at Pennsic
47 on August 7, 2018, with Gæira
Aggadóttir, Rose Keeler and Lisa Sciortino.
We just made the beads in the class as you have to take them home and
fire them in a kiln.
Tools: tooth picks or mandrels, Styrofoam to place
toothpicks in, plastic mat, paper towels, kiln
Materials: clay
mixture, distilled water
Rose and I made the beads in class and brought them home in
a plastic tub. Once home, Rose removed
the lid to allow the beads to continue to air dry. We had some left over dry mix to finish
making so we got together September 9, 2018, to make our “packets” from Pennsic.
The instructor mixes her own recipe which she sells on her
website (www.fuzzylizardstudio.com)
and sold at the class for $20 USD. The
color packets get added to the “white” ingredients and are mixed well before
adding distilled water to form a thick paste.
Then you form and shape the paste as desired and set aside to air dry. During drying, the salts dry on the surface
forming crystals. The last step is to
fire in a kiln. Rose laid our beads in flat.
The kiln instructions are pretty vague, so here’s what Rose did for the
first firing: Turned the kiln on, 575°F
an hour up to 1750°F,
hold for 30 minutes, then off. Here is what they looked like at 300°F:
We believe they need a higher heat as it appeared the glass
did not heat enough to fuse. They are a
beautiful color though!
Many beads were made
The foam base we paced our beads in
Rose and I getting dirty making beads at Pennsic
The bead shaper the instructor had.
Bead chart showing the different colors based on the ingredients.
More bead examples on how changing the amount of an ingredient changes the color
Bead examples in the class
On 9/9/18 We got together and finished the clay we had from Pennsic
We also did some pressed objects with bead holes.
Many beads made on 9/8
The formed beads individually drying on sticks
A bead close up
You can see the crystals forming
Close up of our beads drying
The label on the instructor's "mixture"
The label from the instructor - other side
This is what our beads looked like at 300F. They did not completely turn to glass and will need to be refired.
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