A recipes blend is a systematic transition from one recipe to another different recipe. The blend consists of a series of glazes which "step" from the original recipe to the new recipe. The blend can have any number of "steps" or samples but Matrix has a set number of samples in each blend it can create.

Blends are designed to systematically explore change. You may want simply to explore the systematic changing of a material such as clay in a recipe or you want to see the results of changing the quantity(s) of colourant.

More complex blends may be generated to show specific changes in parts of the unity formula of a recipe.

In all cases designing the blend is the essential first step. Your blend will be all the more successful if you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve.

Designing the Blend Parameters - Corner Recipes

Before Matrix can generate a blend it must know what the "corner" recipes are. e.g the "corner recipes" for a line blend would be the starting point recipe (A) and the end point recipe (B). for a triaxial blend would be the recipes at the corners of the triangle format of the blend recipe (A) recipe (B) and recipe (C) for a biaxial blend would be the recipes at the corners of the quadrangular format of the blend recipe (A) recipe (B), recipe (C) and recipe (D)

The recipes to be placed at the corners of whatever blend you are creating must be present on your computer as individual recipe files.

They can be entered in the Recipe to Formula environment or the Formula to Recipe environment and saved in a special folder created for the blend. There is a folder in the Matrix folder called Blends. It is good practice to create inside the blends folder a new folder for each blend you make. The corner recipes for each blend can be located here where they will eventually be joined by the worksheet file and the recipe database file which will store all of the individual recipes in the blend.

Mixing and test firing blends particularly of the larger biaxial is time consuming. Take care with the design of these blends to ensure your return for time expended is worth the commitment.

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