Brushing is a glaze application technique in which glaze is applied directly to a piece with a brush, in several thin, even coats rather than one thick one. It is the most direct and least equipment-dependent of the standard application methods, and the usual choice for test tiles, small decorative accents, touch-ups on an otherwise dipped or poured piece, and applying multiple colors of glaze to precise areas of a single piece.
¶ How it works
A single thick brushed coat dries unevenly and tends to leave visible streaks and brush marks, so brushing is normally built up over several thin coats, often applied in alternating directions (a cross-hatched pattern) so that streaks in one layer are covered by the next rather than compounding. Reaching the same fired thickness as a single dip or pour typically takes several more passes this way, which makes brushing slower per unit area than dipping, pouring, or spraying for coating a whole piece. Glazes intended for brush application are often formulated slightly differently from dipping glazes, with additives that help the suspension flow evenly off a brush and cling to a vertical surface without immediately sagging. A common one is a small amount of gum (such as CMC, sodium carboxymethyl cellulose), which thickens the glaze's working consistency and helps a brushed layer hold together while wet without changing the fired result, since the gum itself burns away early in the firing.
¶ Practical considerations
Brushing needs no bucket, spray booth, or compressor, which makes it the lowest-overhead option and a natural fit for detail work, small test batches, and situations where only part of a piece needs glaze rather than the whole surface. It is a poor fit, by contrast, for coating a large piece evenly and quickly, where the extra passes required and the difficulty of keeping thickness consistent by hand across a big surface both work against it compared to dipping or pouring.
¶ References
- Hansen, Tony. "CMC Gum." Digitalfire Reference Library. digitalfire.com
- Photo by Betty Llensa, via Pexels, Pexels License (resized and re-compressed from the original).