another firing

I just finished another firing. this was the one for porcelain temperature, cone 11 (1300 C). cone 11 went over with the pyro reading much lower, as usual, 1256C. and a nice early finish, 7 pm, early enough to go and socialise with my friends next door, although I may come home early, since I was up at 3am, and 5 am, and 7 am, lighting burners and turning up pressure. it was a very mild night and I missed the torrential downpour at 6am.

here is the flame at cone 11, it seems to have a much bigger whiter core than the lower temp flames.

from the side, and then from the front; you can just see the green from free copper in the atmosphere

but actually there was a lot more green than that. this firing has all the pieces I made with layers of different clays, including a re-firing of one of them, to a temperature where the porcelain should start to fuse, and the other clays to darken, and there should be some warping and a lot of shrinkage. the ones with porcelain are not glazed except a thin layer of barium glaze on the re-fire, and the two big pots with ST material are glazed, one with barium, and the other with the combination I call salt marsh, with the copper/tin/dolomite glaze on the upper half, and the wood ash glaze on the lower. and at the back underneath, are 10 small pots, half with shino and half with barium.

I will be very interested to see how this firing turns out as it is a risky experiment.

this morning we got the chance of a quick walk in the sun. I have been waiting to take this photo for a while.

the little red square against all that green – its completely abstract. I should probably crop it more. everything was very wet after the rain overnight, pools of muddy water against the edge of the wood, which is a very boggy place itself.

just a few leaves hanging on in the wood.