Getting Ready

Getting ready for the fall firing.  Looks like it will be only one.  Everything is slowing down.  We've started buying the wood for the kiln, already cut and split and now I've started having someone else mix my clay recipe for me!  There's only so much energy and mine is going into making for now.

First try fermentation jar.

July Firing Results

Two new clay bodies and a couple of new glazes.

Large shallow bowl with slip and ash glaze on dark clay.

Coarse clay with slip and ash glaze

Large shallow bowl with rope design and ash glaze.

Ash glaze over rope texture and stamps.

Shino glaze over slip on dark clay.

White satin glaze over dark clay.

Satin glaze.

Over To The Dark Side

I've avoided blue my entire pottery career, especially bright cobalt blue, but have come to realize that I quite like some blues.  Here are a few of the blues I'm testing.  The first two and the fourth are the same glaze on different clays.  Attractive but with a tendency to run.  The third and fifth are both another glaze but on different clay and in different parts of the kiln.  The powder blue is leaving me a bit cold.  There will be more tests in the next firing, sometime in September/October.  And yes, blue does sell.

Yunomis

Here are a few yunomis from the last firing.

Classic Temmoku 

Ash Glaze

New Blue Ash Glaze

Navy Blue Ash Glaze

Survivor

I wondered whether putting this tea bowl right at the edge of the firebox was a good idea.  At some point during a stoke it was knocked into the firebox where I found it after unloading, lying on the grates.  Amazingly, after having great hunks of wood tossed onto it, it rings clear!  Not a crack.  Now I have a new matcha bowl!

At Last - March firing in May!

Illness delayed the firing but here are the pots, at last.

Yellow ash glaze over white slip on iron rich clay.

 Shino glaze over white slip on iron rich clay.

Baker with slip and ash glaze on dark clay.

Yellow ash glaze with Indian fabric stamps.

New satin glaze.

Blue Ash glaze on white stoneware.

Pots in Progress

The March firing is slowly coming together.  Here are a few pots in progress.  High iron clay with thick white slip.  They'll mostly be glazed with a yellow ash glaze.