How to make a ceramic pumpkin – Part 2: Glazing

Welcome to part 2 of my ceramic pumpkin making project. In this part 2 I’ll take you through the steps I took to glaze my ceramic pumpkin. If you’ve not yet made your own please check out Part1: Making.

To glaze the pumpkin you’ll need underglazes, stain, paintbrushes, a mixing pallet and, optional, a whirler. Use your pallet to create the orange pumkin colour and paint your bisque fired pumpkin 3 times. Add the detail colour (e.g. brown stem), again apply 3 coats. Glaze fire at cone 6 / 1230 degrees celsius.

This part of the project is all about unleashing your creativity with the decoration of the pumpkin. There is a lot of detailed work to do but it’s worth it, let’s get started.

Things you’ll need to glaze your pumpkin

• A bisque fired pumpkin
• Amaco Velvet Underglazes:
  • Intense yellow
  • Flame orange
  • Light green
• Scarva Nano chocolate brown stain
• Paintbrushes
• Mixing pallet
• Optional: Whirler (allows you to rotate your pumpkin, makes it very easy to glaze)

Mixing Amaco Glazes to make pumpkin orange

Use your mixing pallet to create the orange pumpkin colour by mixing the intense yellow and flame orange using a 50/50 ratio. If you find the colour looks too bright add in a little more yellow.

Makeup enough of the pumpkin orange colour to cover your pumpkin 3 times.

Glaze the pumpkin

Using your brushes apply the pumpkin orange to most of the pumpkin. I say most as you shouldn’t apply anything to the base (if you do this will cause your glazed item to become stuck to the shelf when firing), nor should you apply orange to the stalk/leaf if you’ve added them.

Using the whirler rotate the pumpkin as you apply the colour to ensure it’s evenly applied all round.

Apply 3 coats. Your bisqueware should be porous, each coat should dry very quickly allowing you to apply multiple coats and ensure a nice rich colour.

Mixing Amaco Glazes to make the stem brown

Mix flame orange, intense yellow and green. Then add a small amount of the Nano stain, mix together to create a lovely brown colour, apply to the stem.

Apply 3 coats.

You can also use this brown colour to add some depth to the body of the pumpkin by applying to the inside of the lines. This will make those sections darker and add a little shade, just like a real pumpkin.

Mixing Amaco Glazes to make leaf green

I mix a little intense yellow with the green glaze as when this particular green glaze fires it can look darker than I’d like. Mixing in a little yellow creates a lighter, more leafy, colour when glaze fired.

Firing

Once you’ve added colour to the pumpkin body, stem and leaf it’s ready for a glaze firing. As an optional step you could also add a transparent or clear glaze, I do this to create a lovely shiny finish.

Fire the pumpkin at cone 6 / 1230 degrees celsius.

For a more detailed overview check out my video tutorial below. If this has inspired you to make a ceramic pumpkin I would love to see the results, feel free to tag me on Instagram @cabinceramics.