Penguin Pottery & MidSouth Opulence Glaze Test Tiles | Reduction Look Glaze Combinations

When I first started this pottery journey, I invested in a whole lineup of Penguin Pottery and Opulence glazes. At the time, though, I was firing in a community kiln, and I didn’t want to go through the effort of making test tiles until I had a more permanent firing setup figured out. Now that I do… test tiles were the very first thing on my to-do list.

And honestly? I’m not sure why people hate making test tiles. I think I enjoyed this process more than I’ll ever enjoy making something functional. There’s something incredibly satisfying about dreaming up glaze combinations in your head and then seeing what actually comes out of the kiln. It feels a little like a science experiment and a little like Christmas morning.

When I opened the kiln and saw these, I was so excited I almost cried.

So, in the spirit of sharing with the pottery community, I’m documenting all of the glaze combinations and exactly what I did on each tile. Aside from correcting the white balance, these photos are completely unedited — what you see here is a true representation of how these glazes fired.

For the Opulence Reduction Look glazes, I ran a consistent series of tests so I could see how they behaved with the two dipping glazes I have for layering (Marshmallow and Cast Iron). For each color, I made four tiles: one with the Reduction Look glaze on its own, one with Honey Flux layered on top, one with Marshmallow on the bottom and the Reduction Look glaze on top, and one with Cast Iron underneath with the Reduction Look glaze layered over it. It was a fun way to see how much variation you can get from the same base glaze.

In the screenshots of the glazes, “Op.” refers to Opulence Glazes, and “Pp.” refers to Penguin Pottery.

All of the following test tiles are on Laguna Speckled Buff WC-406 clay body, bisque fired to ∆06, and then glaze fired to ∆5.5.