"Manly" mug

Today's kiln opening had some nice results and a few bloopers. First the good stuff:  "Manly" mug, which is another screen print. The underglaze is aqua, covered with Laguna's Clear Bright (which minimizes the speckling in this clay), and the rest of the mug is glazed in Sky Blue.

"Manly" mug - 3.5" wide x 4" tall

"Manly" mug close up 

The bloopers were glaze tests that uses a significant proportion of Cornwall Stone (which my local supplier has decided not to carry any more due to shipping costs). They've created their own substitute. So far it doesn't quite measure up. The test batch ran much more than normal and didn't have the color saturation of the original. I'll do another test run to confirm it wasn't an error in mixing it up on my part, but I'm pretty certain it wasn't.... Meanwhile I ordered a bag of Cornwall Stone from another supplier. 

Glazing, glazing, glazing

Yay! A friend called and told me that he has room in his up coming reduction firing. I'v got pile of larger pots that will get the reduction treatment. Lucky 13! I glazed yesterday and it took me 4 hours to glaze 13 pots. That's almost 20 minutes per pot! On the home front it is slow going glazing for the electric as well. Too many choices to make. Each pot is a new decision. Gotta streamline the process!

I'm throwing a few new glaze-layering tests into the kiln.  Chun & Sky Blue over black stain painted on bisque. I'll post results.

This & that

A few weekends back on Sept 15/16 I attended "Altered Ceramics" a clay conference here in San Diego. It was great! With roughly 145 women and maybe 5 men in attendance I got to watch Martha Grover, Marty Fielding, Izzy Davis, and Dennis Meiners demo!  Little things were my biggest take aways. Marty holding up a piece of paper to his pitcher to help him with proportions for a spout, or Dennis' little sprigs subtly showing up in his cups and Martha's vinegar/paper slip.... Yeah! And I really was impressed with Izzy's work but don't have the ambition to add a whole new process (screen printing) to my own work.

Meanwhile, the recycled clay is working pretty well. No unpleasant firings so far! (Knock on wood). I did a recent purge of old bisque - things I just wasn't inspired to glaze. Now there are stacks of fresh bisque piling up and it's time to glaze!

I've got a few glaze tests in the works: 'White' eggshell and Frogskin. Both look nice on my test samples so fingers crossed with mixing a bigger batch for a few larger pieces. I'm also going to give the 'Ketchup Red' another shot on some very dark clay. I know it's mostly about slow cooling to get those iron reds. I worry that slow cooling will mess with the rest of my glazes that are working fine - and I'm lazy - so if the color doesn't come through with a normal firing I'll probably give up on 'Ketchup'.