Tip 64: Decorating with Fish Sauce  

The above plate was made by Lauren Bellero of Red Bank, NJ

Lauren writes: "Glad I can give you some "tips" for a change!  I recently learned about a great slip.  Around here it's called "fish sauce".  I love it!  It can be used in cone ^6 to ^10, oxidation or reduction. It's smooth and can be made thin for brushing or thick for trailing.  A typical application using a non-white clay is to brush a shape first and then slip
trail over that for enhancement (leather hard!).  When it is glazed, being that the slip is very white, it provides some variation in color using the same glaze."

Above is an example of a plate Lauren made.  The inner circle is brushed with Fish Sauce, then she used a slip trailer to apply the raised designs.  The same Cone 6 glaze was then applied over the whole plate.  Lauren has also sprayed Fish Sauce on with a sprayer, and has colored the sauce so that the color shows through a transparent glaze.   

Fish Sauce Recipe:
> > Kona F4 23.5%
> > Grolleg 43.6%
> > Pyrophyllite 7.8% 
> > Bentonite 9.5%
> > Flint 15.6%

If you don't mix your own, you could experiment with a variety of commercial products to get similar results.  For example:

Laguna Engobes

Spectrum Raised Accent Colors

Colored Slip

Oxide Stains and Underglazes   (You can get the colored effects with these, but not a raised effect... but you can use these colors to color slip made from your own clay which can then create the raised design.)

Slip Trailers can be found here