Samy Boulos Pottery

Samy Boulos Pottery Sharing my Glaze Combo Experiments & exploring various glazing techniques in my little Home Pottery Studio!🤩🥳

14/06/2026

Frozen Pond — „Purple Bayou“-Edition!😅 Applying White Velvet underglaze (UG)*💢 as the very first step outside, followed by Autumn Purple & Louisiana Bayou as base glazes, Running Hot Chowder (RHC) for the dots as usual, & a single coat of Blue Rutile as cover glaze. And the colors look quite nice! But unfortunately, on the top 1 cm, there is a band of imperfections: many microblisters that give the surface a rough feel! It‘s weird, I‘ve done this kind of combo several times, even with these glazes, never with any issues! Looking closely, I see that there are these microbubbles also on the inside of the cup, where there is no UG, so I guess it‘s not the UG‘s fault… maybe just bad luck…

💢*But why apply white UG first to begin with? It proved in the past to make Spectrum Floating glazes a bit less of a runner, and ensures vibrant, purer colors (as my „white“ stoneware clay fires to a beige/yellowish color), & for the concentrated RHC dots, ensures that RHC doesn‘t dig through the base glaze to reveal the clay, instead revealing the vibrant glaze — but here specifically, it may have done more harm than be helpful… 🫣🤔🤔🤔

CREDIT for the Frozen Pond Technique goes to Kathy McGuire🙏❤️🤩.

GLAZING SUMMARY:
(glazes from SPECTRUM HIGH FIRING GLAZES & AMACO - American Art Clay Company)

Outside:
2x White Velvet Underglaze (V-360) all over (not rim),
2x Autumn Purple (SP-1434) top half,
2x Louisiana Bayou (SP-1451) bottom half,
1–1.5x RHC (SP-1173) sponge dots,**♨️
1x Blue Rutile (PC-20) on the bottom 7/8.

Inside & rim:
2x Autumn Purple (SP-1434).

**♨️(A portion of RHC was slightly thickened by adding Amaco Gum Solution only (no evaporation). 1.5x means: first coat normal, 2nd coat excess immediately dabbed off with a dry sponge brush — used for the top row, rest 1x.)

On white, bisqued, fine-grogged (0–0.2 mm; 25%) stoneware clay (WM2502 from Sibelco).
🔥Fired on clay ball stilts to Cone 5 (bottom shelf): Heated with 100°C/h til 650°C, 10 min hold, then 150°C/h til 1100°C, no hold, followed by 60°C/h to 1185°C, 10 min hold, dropped quickly to 1130°C (-500°C/h), 30 min hold, then cooled to 1000°C at -78°C/h.

12/06/2026

Frozen Pond 🩵🌵💙— „Succulently Floating Bayou“-Edition!😅 With Succulent as base glaze, Running Hot Chowder (RHC) for the dots as usual, and a single coat of each Floating Turquoise & Louisiana Bayou as cover glazes. It’s basically the same type of glaze combo system as my Marigold/ RHC (dots)/ Fuzzy Peach + Papaya combo (reel link at the very bottom here) but with a different Celadon glaze & a different duo of Spectrum Floating glazes. And it came out pretty nice! I was hoping for more vibrant colors outside, but the Louisiana Bayou turned out to be pretty dominant. 🙂

CREDIT for the Frozen Pond Technique goes to Kathy McGuire 🙏❤️🤩.

GLAZING SUMMARY:
(glazes from SPECTRUM HIGH FIRING GLAZES & AMACO - American Art Clay Company)

Outside:
2x Succulent (C-24),
1–2x RHC* (SP-1173) sponge dots (top row 2x, rest 1x),
1x Floating Turquoise (SP-1449),
1x Louisiana Bayou (SP-1451).

Inside & rim:
2x Floating Turquoise (SP-1449) all over.

*(A portion of RHC was slightly thickened by evaporation + adding Amaco Gum Solution, to be able to apply it on vertical surfaces.)

On white, bisqued, fine-grogged (0–0.2 mm; 25%) stoneware clay (WM2502 from Sibelco).

🔥Fired on clay ball stilts to Cone 5 (bottom shelf): Heated with 100°C/h til 650°C, 10 min hold, then with 150°C/h til 1100°C, no hold, followed by 60°C/h to 1185°C, 10 min hold, dropped quickly to 1130°C (-500°C/h), 30 min hold, then cooled to 1000°C at -78°C/h.



🔗LINK for the mentioned Marigold/ RHC/ Fuzzy Peach + Papaya
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/18efGZxgTA/?mibextid=wwXIfr

11/06/2026

Frozen Pond🍬— „Cotton Candy“-Edition!😅 With Bougainvillea inside and around the rim, & Floating Turquoise + Morning Glory as base glazes outside. Running Hot Chowder (RHC) was used for the dots as usual, and a single coat of Blue Rutile as cover glaze — leaving the top 1/8 free, to keep it vibrantly pink — and I like the result!🤩 I also used smaller dots this time, dividing the cup into 12 instead of only 8 sections. I think I prefer the slightly larger dots, though, but still it looks nice. 🙂👍

Oh, and as I often do with FP using Spectrum Floating Glazes: white underglaze (UG)*💢 was applied as the very first step outside.

💢*But why apply white UG first to begin with? It proved in the past to make Spectrum Floating glazes a bit less of a runner, and ensures vibrant, purer colors (as my „white“ stoneware clay fires to a beige/yellowish color), and for the concentrated RHC dots, ensures that RHC doesn‘t dig through the base glaze to reveal the clay, instead revealing the vibrant glaze — and in all of this, it totally did its job! 😅👍

CREDIT for the Frozen Pond Technique goes to Kathy McGuire 🙏❤️🤩.

GLAZING SUMMARY:
(glazes from SPECTRUM HIGH FIRING GLAZES & AMACO - American Art Clay Company)

Outside:
2x White Velvet Underglaze (V-360),
2x Floating Turquoise (SP-1449) middle band,
2x Morning Glory (SP-1450) bottom 1/4,
2x Bougainvillea (SP-1447) top 1 cm band,
1–1.5x RHC (SP-1173) sponge dots,**♨️
1x Blue Rutile (PC-20) on the bottom 7/8.

Inside & rim:
2x Bougainvillea (SP-1447) all over.

**♨️(A portion of RHC was slightly thickened by evaporation + adding Amaco Gum Solution, to be able to apply it on vertical surfaces. 1.5x means: first coat normal, 2nd coat excess immediately dabbed off with a dry sponge brush — which was done for the top row, rest of the rows was only 1x.)

On white, bisqued, fine-grogged (0–0.2 mm; 25%) stoneware clay (WM2502 from Sibelco).

🔥Fired on clay ball stilts to witness cone 5 (bottom shelf) using my usual „drop & hold + slow-cool“ firing schedule: Heated with 100°C/h til 650°C, 10 min hold, then with 150°C/h til 1100°C, no hold, followed by 60°C/h to 1185°C, 10 min hold, dropped quickly to 1130°C (-500°C/h), 30 min hold, then cooled to 1000°C at -78°C/h.

10/06/2026

Frozen Pond🍋 — Frosted Lemon Turquoise - Edition! 🤩🥳 A light beautiful combo that I recently saw posted online, and I bought frosted Lemon just to be able to do it as well! And it was totally worth it!🤩🥳🍀

CREDIT for this specific combo goes to Housemade Pottery — thanks for sharing it on Facebook in the Mayco Mud Room Society 🤩🙏❤️. And CREDIT for the Frozen Pond Technique itself goes to Kathy McGuire, of course 🙂❤️.

GLAZING SUMMARY:
(glazes from Mayco Colors, SPECTRUM HIGH FIRING GLAZES & AMACO - American Art Clay Company)

Inside (incl. rim):
3x Frosted Lemon (SW-169).

Outside:
2x Frosted Lemon (SW-169),
1–1.5x RHC (SP-1173) sponge dots,*
2x Textured Turquoise (PC-25), with the 2nd coat applied only on the top 3/4.

* (A portion of RHC was slightly thickened by evaporation + adding Amaco Gum Solution, to be able to apply it easily & cleanly on vertical surfaces. 1.5x means: first coat normal, 2nd coat excess immediately dabbed off with a dry sponge brush. The bottom row was also applied this way, just without the full coat first — this was a completely new combo for me, I had no idea how much it might flow at cone 6! So I was careful with the amount of RHC. 😅 It all worked out well in the end 🥳👍🍀).

On white, bisque-fired fine-grogged (0–0.2 mm; 25%) stoneware clay (WM2502 from Sibelco).

🔥Fired on clay ball stilts to witness cone 6 (high middle shelf), using my usual „drop & hold + slow-cool“ schedule: Heated with 100°C/h til 650°C, 10 min hold, then with 150°C/h til 1100°C, no hold, followed by 60°C/h to 1185°C, 10 min hold, dropped quickly to 1130°C (-500°C/h), 30 min hold, then cooled to 1000°C at -78°C/h.

08/06/2026

My first Birch + Cordovan combo on a black-clay cup, with Light Flux (LF) between the two glazes — and I‘m in love!😍 Outside, I applied LF as U-lines & tiny dots, inside as a single coat all over the wall — to see how the different applications influence the result — and wow, what a difference! I love both! 🤩 But for outside, I think it would benefit from thicker application 🙂. I also think some of the brown areas comes from a reaction with the black clay — it gives it kinda an antique look! 😀

CREDIT for this combo goes to many people who have posted their version of it. But specifically, Kristy McKinnon inspired me to go with the „U-lines“ + dots application of LF outside, while Samantha Rose inspired me to use a single LF coat for the inside 🤩😍🙏❤️ — both from posts in the Facebook group Mayco Mud Room Society.

GLAZING SUMMARY:
(All glazes from Mayco Colors)

Inside (incl. rim):
2x Birch (SW-131) all over,
1x Light Flux (SW-401) on walls (not the rim),
2x Cordovan (SW-128) all over.

Outside:
Bottom 1“ taped (painter‘s tape), then:
2x Birch (SW-131) all over,
1x Light Flux (SW-401) tiny dots & U-lines,
2x Cordovan (SW-128) all over.
Tape removed.

On black, bisque-fired fine-grogged (20%, 0–0.2 mm) stoneware clay (Nigra 2002 from Sibelco).

🔥Fired to witness cone 6 (middle shelf), using my usual „drop & soak + slow cool“ schedule: Heated with 100°C/h til 650°C, 10 min hold, then with 150°C/h til 1100°C, no hold, followed by 60°C/h to 1185°C, 10 min hold, dropped quickly to 1130°C (-500°C/h), 30 min hold, then cooled to 1000°C at -78°C/h.

07/06/2026

Black, Blue & White Oil-Spot-Effect🛢️🫟 — on black clay! 😅 I had to try this combo that I saw several people posting about — and I love it! I think I‘ll go back to white clay, as the black clay I used is prone to bubbling & orange peel, especially with a lot of glaze. Still, I‘m happy with the result. 🙂

CREDIT for this glaze combo goes to all the people who posted about it that I have seen & have inspired me to try it as well. I don‘t know who was the very first to come up with this specific configuration — the earliest post that I saw was from Dalal Hares Fishman (Sept. 16th 2024 in a FB group) 😍🙏 — and this years posts inspired me as well: glaze.clay.love , Emma Mallon & Kathy McGuire. Thank you!🙂❤️🙏

GLAZING SUMMARY:
(All glazes from AMACO - American Art Clay Company)

Inside (incl. rim):
3x Obsidian (C-1).

Outside:
bottom 2 cm taped, then
2x Obsidian (C-1),
3x Indigo Float (PC-23),
3–4x Snow (C-10) as two 2–3 cm bands, one on top, one at the bottom.

On black, bisque-fired fine-grogged (20%, 0–0.2 mm) stoneware clay (Nigra 2002 from Sibelco).

🔥Fired to witness cone 6 (middle shelf), using my usual „drop & soak + slow cool“ schedule: Heated with 100°C/h til 650°C, 10 min hold, then with 150°C/h til 1100°C, no hold, followed by 60°C/h to 1185°C, 10 min hold, dropped quickly to 1130°C (-500°C/h), 30 min hold, then cooled to 1000°C at -78°C/h.

07/06/2026

Wooden Peacock-🦚-Glazing Pattern on a bowl!🪵 This was my very first peacock pattern glazing from last year that used Sandstone (SW-176) as main cover glaze as it is often suggested online — together with a Lavender glaze mix (see glazing summary below) — and wow, what a surprise!! 😅 Not at all what I expected, but I love it! It looks kinda like wood! 🤩

GLAZING SUMMARY
(Glazes from AMACO - American Art Clay Company & Mayco Colors)

Rim: 3x Teal Next Time (SC-010).

Inside:
W‘s: Light Flux (SW-401).
Dots: SC-010, 1:1 PC-21/PG-55, 1:1 C-10/C-20, that’s the top few rows — the rest is not visible in the final product 🫣😅.
Bottom area: SC-010.
Cover glaze: 2x Sandstone (SW-176), 1x 1:1 Floating Lavender (PG-55)/ Lavender Mist (SW-165).

Outside:
W‘s: Light Flux (SW-401).
Dots: C-20, PC-53, SC-010.
Cover glaze: 1x PC-24, 1x PC-23, 1x PC-20.

On white, bisque-fired groggless clay (W from Sibelco).

🔥Fired on clay balk stilts to witness cone 6 (middle shelf), using my usual „drop & soak + slow cool“ schedule: Heated with 100°C/h til 650°C, 10 min hold, then with 150°C/h til 1100°C, no hold, followed by 60°C/h to 1185°C, 10 min hold, dropped quickly to 1130°C (-500°C/h), 30 min hold, then cooled to 1000°C at -78°C/h.

06/06/2026

Frozen Pond❄️ Pink Sunrise Edition!🌅Using Snow (from Amaco) as base glaze, Running Hot Chowder (RHC) dots as usual, and as cover glaze, various Spectrum Floating Glazes in bands, with color transitions by partially overlapping the glazes, but only applying the bottom glaze thinly for overlapping. It worked out quite well! Although I think I could‘ve used a bit more glaze — I was worried it would flow too much, but at Cone 5 and with Snow as base glaze, this was not an issue at all.

CREDIT for the Frozen Pond Technique goes to Kathy McGuire 🤩🙏❤️.

GLAZING SUMMARY:
(glazes from AMACO - American Art Clay Company & SPECTRUM HIGH FIRING GLAZES)

Inside:
2x Snow (C-10) all over,
1–2x RHC (SP-1173) sponge dots,
2x Sangria (SP-1435) in the center,*
2x Sunrise (SP-1446) band around the center,*
2x Bougainvillea (SP-1447) band above,*
2x Autumn Purple (SP-1434) band around rim.*

Outside:
1x Obsidian (C-1),
2x Cosmic Tea Dust (PC-63).

*All these Spectrum Floating Glazes were applied not too thick — it is not 2 full layers each used here. Although next time, I‘d use 2 full layers. 🙂👍

On white, bisque-fired groggless clay (W from Sibelco).

🔥Fired on clay balk stilts to witness cone 5 (bottom shelf), using my usual „drop & soak + slow cool“ schedule: Heated with 100°C/h til 650°C, 10 min hold, then with 150°C/h til 1100°C, no hold, followed by 60°C/h to 1185°C, 10 min hold, dropped quickly to 1130°C (-500°C/h), 30 min hold, then cooled to 1000°C at -78°C/h.

05/06/2026

One of my first SUPERNOVA*💢 Frozen Pond Combos😍, without the use of RHC (Running Hot Chowder), the latter being not so easily obtainable in some parts of the world. I was especially motivated to find a decent Frozen Pond combo done purely with Amaco glaze products back when I created this bowl in January this year, as Amaco asked me to deliver artwork to be featured at Amaco‘s booth at the NCECA in March 2026 🤩🥳! I was so excited & honored — what a great opportunity! — but talk about pressure to produce something beautiful 😅. And since my IG channel grew mostly due to sharing Frozen Pond glazing reels, I wanted to still use this technique, if at all possible to look great without Spectrum products. I was SO happy when I realized Supernova (CO-6 from Amaco’s COSMOS line) showed promising flowy properties when layered — but there were also some challenges to still overcome. This was the bowl that gave me confidence I might be on the right path. But it was not the one I sent to Amaco — the links for the bowl & the vase that were featured at NCECA 2026 are at the very bottom ⬇️⬇️.)

Supernova gives results that are different than RHC, but still, it provides interesting flowy patterns, and the dots flow a little bit towards each other, a bit like RHC. Most importantly: it wasn‘t just solid white dots that don‘t do that much else (like pure Honey Flux (HF) would do — one can still get great results with HF, but I wouldn‘t really call it a „Frozen Pond-effect“).

I love the flower that resulted here in that bowl, thanks to the shape of the bowl, the right amount of glazes & firing temp.! 🥳😅👍
One small thing is the slight „orange peel“ surface that this combo with Supernova creates here, and 1 or 2 pinholes — this is not the case with Celadon as base glaze, and was also not so much the case with Albany Slip Brown… seems to be a reaction specific to this combo… but it still looks beautiful! 🤩 And later, I was able to reduce the risk for this further by extending the slow-cooling after the drop&hold firing down to 930°C (not just down to 1000°C as I did here), plus using the HF/S-mix instead of pure Supernova as explained below:

*💢(Nowadays, instead of pure Supernova, I usually use the HF/S-mix (a 1:2 glaze mixture of Honey Flux (PC-17)/ Supernova (CO-6), weight ratios). With HF/S for the dots, the dots are lighter/ better visible, and also slightly slowed down with regard to flowing down, which is especially important at cone 6 🙂👍.)

CREDIT for the Frozen Pond Technique (with RHC) goes to Kathy McGuire 🤩🙏❤️.

GLAZING SUMMARY:
(All glazes from AMACO - American Art Clay Company🥳)

Inside:
2x Deep Firebrick (PC-59),
1x Chun Plum (PC-55),
1–2x Supernova (CO-6) sponge dots (middle row 2x),
2x Blue Rutile (PC-20) all over.

Outside:
2x Cobalt (C-20),
1–2x Supernova (CO-6) sponge dots (top row 2x),
2x Indigo Float (PC-23) all over (2nd coat only on top 3/4).

On white, bisque-fired groggless clay (W from Sibelco).

🔥Fired on clay balk stilts to witness cone 5.5 (top shelf), using my usual „drop & soak + slow cool“ schedule: Heated with 100°C/h til 650°C, 10 min hold, then with 150°C/h til 1100°C, no hold, followed by 60°C/h to 1185°C, 10 min hold, dropped quickly to 1130°C (-500°C/h), 30 min hold, then cooled to 1000°C at -78°C/h. (As mentioned above, better to continue with the slow-cooling down to 930°C.)



🔗LINK for the VASE that was features at NCECA 2026:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AyMBnWZqD/?mibextid=wwXIfr

🔗LINK for the BOWL that was features at NCECA 2026:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1GRf7WeZ2d/?mibextid=wwXIfr

🔗LINK for the ALBUM of all my SUPERNOVA Frozen Pond combos:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.122136747951000706&type=3

04/06/2026

Textured Turquoise over Blue Lagoon🏝️, with Blue Stone on the rim — a beautiful blue/green combination! And the Blue Stone flowing subtly into the Purple Crystal outside also works for me!
This small bowl from last year was glazed at Bü‘s Keramik (.keramik on Instagram) as part of a series of glazing experiments that I was conducting in this lovely pottery studio.❤️ I always wanted to see how this glaze combination performs — and I really like the result! Also good to know that this glaze combo can take firing up to cone 7+. 🙂 This was the start of going down the rabbit hole regarding optimizing the firing schedule 😅.

GLAZING SUMMARY:
(Glazes from AMACO - American Art Clay Company)

Inside:
3x Blue Lagoon (PC-26),
3x Textured Turquoise (PC-25).

Outside:
3–4 x Purple Crystal (PC-16).

Rim:
2x Blue Stone (PC-22).

On bisque-fired, white stoneware clay (WM2502 from Sibelco).

🔥Fired on metal stilts in an electric front-loader kiln (150 L, Nabertherm): 110°C/h til 650°C, no hold, then 150°C/h til 1240°C, 20 min hold, which turned out to be Cone 7+.

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