And More Drying...

So the bisque is loaded, these teapots are now put together but they are drying and will take a while to get fully dried.  I am headed to a glaze firing on friday or saturday (meaning I must make that Blue Rust Glaze by then) and I will fire off a few of my pieces and the rest of the community studio pile.  I have one bowl that is a replacement piece that will go in there, and finally get shipped out!

Then about one more bisque load, which should knock off my remaining pieces.  I figure possibly another glaze load for the community studio but for me, I will finish off the rest of my pieces in the soda firing.  That will bring us up very tight to christmas.

So below is my platter that is a bit over 13".  Mikki did the painting on this with underglaze. We discussed possible Lavander glaze, made with a small amount of mason stain to a celadon base. This will allow for the underglaze to show through nicely and not cause any odd runs as this will bisque fire with the underglaze to set it in the clay. This was trimmed today (mainly rounded off) and will now dry... slowly....

And here are the two tea pots. Both out of the Whitestone from Laguna. The plan is to soda fire these off.

Waiting on things to dry...

I think enough stuff will be dry I can do a bisque load tomorrow. This would set me up, possibly, to have what I want for soda. I am uncertain with a few gift pieces if I want to soda them or not.  I am feeling super pressured time wise.

Here are a few newly thrown pieces. Not feeling very productive as I try to deal with my house having all kinds of fun expensive problems.

This is a baker for chicken. Think the method of putting a beer can inside the chicken?  So the center section is filled with a liquid and herbs and the bird goes on top!

One of two teapots I threw today.

Things that are drying... that need to hurry up and dry damn it....

Look, Imma tea pot !

So, some odds and ends. This included a few rice bowls, the cup part of a wine glass, and then two full wine glasses.

This is a different clay. It is Whitestone from Laguna.  We think it might do well with flashing in the soda kiln. So, we will see.  I made mugs and two platters.

Now this platter, about 13" wide, will be a collaboration piece. Stay tuned to see fish designs!

And here we go again with the pitcher.  I really need to just devote the time and do a bunch of pitchers and tea pots at once.

Sabrina Comes Into Her Own....

So in the midst of all the make-dry-fire-glaze-fire to get work out to sell... I have not had time to fire off Sabrina the soda kiln.  I set some pieces aside, had a free enough weekend and fired her off.

If you look below you can see the pieces I am talking about.  Sabrina has had some changes. Below are two burners, part of a Ward Burner System. Now in the past I have fought propane not having really as much as I needed. The issue is not having not sufficient propane to burn, but rather propane freezes up. As it gets colder you use and lose more gas. So if you can have a much larger bottle (when firing for long periods, so grilling does not have this issue) you use less gas. And, the tank doesn't freeze as fast.  So I bought two 100# tanks.

I then added a side burner. In this firing I started the firing with the lower burners. So I used the yoke and had a 100# tank and a 40# tank.  When I started reduction at 800*C for body reduction, I added the side burner which had the other 100# tank.

Now, prior to the adjustments the kiln would stall around 900*C or 1000*C.  Also, it took quite a while to get there. So I could get ^6 about 10 hours, always shutting down in the dark.  There were cold days in the past that I only got ^5 but was ok with that.

Well, this got me to ^6 by 5 hours. I usually only check every 30 min and due to this I did not throw the kiln into glaze reduction till much later than usual.  So, my Shino has suffered for this.  Next time!! and umm... it got to ^7 by the time we ended it!

So I called in my help, about two hours earlier than planned.  We added tacos of soda through the side burner and then sprayed.  This means we had more soda on the lowest shelf.  No Duh, but next time we will spray twice as much and focus mainly on the upper level.

Attempted to down fire, but it was not enough for the iron saturated glaze. Thats fine, it was an experiment anyway.  I was ready to open in the morning... but I had to go to work.  By the time I got off, it was dark. So I waited an additional day to open the kiln. So this morning me and my partner opened it today!

Here you can see all the pieces at the top, only the cup is mine.

  So here are my pieces. Now I have not sanded the wadding off. On the bowls they were exposed to soda openly, so not real smooth surface. The bakers were placed lip to lip so the inside was not exposed to soda. I like how the Nuka came out. But as noted, the Shino is not right.  You can clearly see what was on the lowest level and therefore the most heavily soda exposed.

Below, this is Nuka.

This is not glazed, just a lot of soda.

This is what bone does with reduction and soda.

The splash in the middle is bone glaze, the rest was soda exposed, I had this inside pointing up.

This was fired on the side!

Nuka on the outside, a bit thin.

Here is a dragon head and then a lady made by Mikki.  Not sure what caused the black.

This is a bird house, traditionally glazed but the reduction and soda changed the ^6 oxidation glaze a great deal.  Nice marks on the roof I think.

Neema does sculpture, and lately had done a series of masks. Showing eyes, cheek bones and nose, which are typically how we identify a face.  She used three different clays (I think), none glazed.

Well the computer only loaded this pix of Jessies and none of Kwrens.... bleh.

Lessons?  Well.  Twice as much soda sprayed. Will focus mainly on the upper kiln.  Will slow down the firing, I would like 8 hours and allow for a better glaze reduction.

Soaking the sculpture was the right move.