Salt Lusters

by Marci Blattenberger

Sprinkling a little table salt onto a still wet luster creates some interesting effects... With most lusters, the salt will create little textured spots..but a few lusters react in spectacular ways:

One luster that reacts spectacularly with salt is turquoise or blue green .

Apply a thin coat of turquoise or blue green luster on the piece. Then , working quickly before hte luster starts to set up, pour some table salt into your hand and carefully pick up a few grains. Sprinkle 3 or 4 grains at a time into the wet luster. You will see the salt pull the luster to itself, making a little dark spot.
Continue to sprinkle on salt , being careful to not put on too much salt. Too much salt will pull out too much color...
Fire .. ( I fire my lusters hot.. cone 015.. but you can fire cooler )

The salt will create little spotty textures in the turquoise that will show a pink or yellow undercolor.

This piece was done in a similar manner to the above piece.. but I first covered the piece with a coat of liquid bright gold and fired it...
I then covered the gold with a coat of Amethyst luster..and carefully sprinkled on a little salt, as described above.
Fire
The effect with this luster is little gold spots where the salt hits and the amethyst luster turns a smoky matt black .