Diggin' it

Here's a little jar. This is the same glaze combo as the small plate I put up a few days ago. I really like this combo together, which is good because I have a five gallon bucket full of the lighter glaze because I was trying to make half that much, but made it way to thin, and so to fix it I made another batch of dry and mixed together.


I hope I didn't already post this plate. I guess I'll find out in a minute. A little ring action going on. Diggin' it.

I just don't really have anything else much to say. I'll be spending the next three work days glazing again, firing on Thursday. I have enough bisque that I think I can get two more firings, and then it's back to making pots again.

Boozin' it

I dropped off my first review shipment today. I left twelve pieces, the photos here are three of them, snapped in this mornings manic photo frenzy. I'm actually pretty happy with the photo above of the oval.

This photo has a little too much reflection on it. It washes the color out a little.

This one came out really sweet too. I stopped at the camera shop in Concord and the bulbs I need are 20$ a piece and I just can't swing it, especially with my new mop purchase. So I stopped at Lowes and got some full spectrum compact florescents to try. If they don't cut it then I will have to spring for the other bulbs.

So after a pretty crazy day of unloading, analyzing, pricing, packing and driving and a aftermath of carnage at my house as a result, I am eating some dinner and drinking a very large martini with some fresh mango in it. I call it a martini, but it's just vodka in a glass with mango. My friend, locally famous Bob King is playing tonight at the Common Man. So I will try to have only this one martini so I can go listen later. Good night and good luck.

Flowers and a dirty floor

Still another couple of pieces from last firing. These are some better photos I tried to take. I still need to work on my lighting a little. I'd like to find three of those cool-burning photos lights. I just need to get off my butt and do it. The tumbler below is pretty big actually. It could be used as a vase.


My firing this time was eh-eh. I did not get my main browny-orange glaze on thick enough on many pots. Sometimes they look okay like that, sometimes not. I had maybe a 60% success rate. So that's better than many firings in the past. However, I did have great success refiring two pieces from last firing where the glaze was too thin, so I will try to refire a few of the pots that I really like but didn't quite come out.

I bought something really special yesterday. You have to wonder about my sad little life when something like this pleases me. I bought a commercial style mop bucket and mop. You know the kind where you dunk the mop into a yellow bucket on wheels and and squeeze out the water in the presser thing. It's by Rubbermaid and is really quality. Nice to occasionally buy something nowadays that hasn't been manufactured like crap. So my little setup does a great job of mopping the floor, which was sorely in need.

New and old/new

These pots are still from my last firing. The pot above is the direction I feel pulled in now.

This pot with the leaves is a direction I was working on before I changed course (again). I really like it, and I like the sprigging. Maybe I can figure a way to incorporate both into the same pot.

These tumblers above are part of that same last direction. I had already had all these pots sprigged, and so glazed the the way I was working before, but now I wish had tried some with the new style I am working on. Oh well.

My kiln is almost to temp. I won't be glazing or making any pots today. I want to see how this batch comes through the fire before I glaze the next one. I'm still learning something from each successive firing that I try and pass on to the next. I have to find out today, but I think I might need to put some serious thought and work into designing a booth. I might need a photo of it to apply to the fair Nov.1. I've studied a lot of other potters' booths trying to get a feel for what to do, and what I've learned is that everyone does it differently. I have definitely formed some opinions of what NOT to do. I'm a little overwhelmed at the prospect.

I just figured out something pretty cool I thought I'd share. I regularly have trouble with the top shelf of my kiln being cooler than the middle. Often close to a cone. The bottom is a little behind as well. I believe the main reason the top is so far behind is because of my vent. I have three tiny holes drilled into my kiln lid where the air draws in, and then exits at the bottom of the kiln. I believe that air draw is enough to keep the top shelf cooler. I could solve this by putting a blank shelf over my top layer, but stacking doesn't always work out so conveniently.

I had the idea last firing, that if I removed a peep plug from the center of the kiln, that the air would then draw through that peep hole instead of the top holes. I tested this with a match and my assumption was correct. I decided that when I reached cone 5 this firing I would pull a center peep and test this. I am blown away as I went to check and ALL THREE cone packs are cone 6 down and cone 7 up. I then became concerned about the kiln making it through the soak without overfiring, and so I skipped the last five minutes (I had only programmed 8), re-programmed the ramp/cool again (quickly before I lost too much heat) and was off and running again. I wasn't expecting this level of success with this approach. See woodfirers! There's a lot of excitement and drama in electric too!

Plates and jars and pizza

Here are a couple more pieces from my last firing. The plate above is actually kind of small-like a lunch plate. I really like this combination, so I'd like to do more with it. However, the lighter glaze is very difficult to apply with a brush, so it's a pain. I have to check into gum or whatever it is you use to make a glaze more brushable.

Here are a couple of jars.

I have the kiln loaded and ready to fire. It will start again at 12:30 am. I think it reached peak around 10 am last time, so that works out well. I'm still trying to get a feel for what to do with the black brushwork. Like what is too much, and what is not enough. Plus just what feels right as far as design goes. Well that will do it for me. I am making a tasty pizza tonight. It is a cheese-less pizza, but that is partially because I have eaten so much cheese lately I need a break, and because the fresh mozzarella was 8 dollars for a pound which was out of my budget. The crust is made with sourdough-rosemary-olive oil dough that I made this morning, and is topped with sliced ugly tomato-which by the way, is the BEST tomato I have had in years, salt, pepper and olive oil. It promises to be tasty.

Vase with ears

Blahhh. Too tired to write. Glazing kicks my butt. Just wanted to put up a little picture of a little pot that I like a little-lot. Chow for now.

A dinner plate

Well here is one of the plates from my last firing. I probably should have taken a detail of the blue area. It has this cool grey-ish -webby thing going on. I am wondering if some free alumina affected it somehow as I've never really seen this before and likely never will again. The plate is pretty simple, but I like it.

Well I've reached another difficult situation. The white glaze I used for the last firing, while it dooesn't pinhole and works well with the other glazes, I have discovered is not very resistant to metal marking. So the search is on. I have tried so many it is not even funny. I have another idea I will test today. I have this old glaze I used to use, a cream color, which is very hard, shiny, and metal-mark resistant. I gave almost a full bucket away when I did my glaze elimination thing a few months ago, so I could kick myself now. But I am going to make up a test and see how that works as a liner? It could be interesting.

a good day

I had a pretty good firing. Quite a few rejects-many do to a glazing incident that I didn't share. I have this container of wax that has alumina mixed in that I use to glaze my galleries and lid rims which helps keep them from sticking together. Well for many of my pieces, after I glaze the inside, I wax the rim and clean the excess off the outside up to the rim. I get a nice clean edge that way. Well, guess what wax I grabbed that morning to wax the rims? Fortunately I had only done about 10 pieces, and the next morning I held them on the wheel with my Giffin Grip (a nice new use I discovered) and trimmed the waxed rims off and reglazed them. I think there was still this residue of alumina and I got a lot of pitting on those rims. Oh well.

I'll put up some photos of the successful pieces over the next few days-maybe some nice photos as well, as I believe some of the pieces warrant a psuedo-professional photo op before I send them off to my review never to be seen again (they go from the review to one of the gallery shops). This piece is a honey pot that thank god came out nice. I owe this honey pot in trade for a massage that a massues friend (spell) gave me a while back.

I hope I didn't offend too many people with my tool review. It is just my opinion, and I know that doesn't mean it is the correct one, and that there are many ways to approach a situation. It is not my intent to be judgmental of anyone who would use such a tool. It is just my desire to scream loudly from my soapbox on occasion.