next firing

I fired my kiln on Wednesday and opened it up today. I was trying for less reduction, I wanted to get some pale green pots with porcelain spots and cloudy bits in a bluer green,like this –

green-porcelain-spots.jpg

which I did before. but it didn’t work out. it was a much more subtle firing, with paler pots, and you can still see the porcelain inlay, but you have to look closely.

porcelain-spots.jpg

I need to have more of the pots with the copper (saltmarsh) glaze in the mix, so that the copper becomes really volatile in the kiln atmosphere. you can get some nasty pinks like this, but my barium carbonate glaze (chalk beach) catches it as a faint green. when this happens during the firing you get a wonderful green flame out of the flue.

I also tried one pot which had not had a biscuit firing, this is called raw glazing. because I start with a very slow overnight stage, I can do this now. I think it is quite different from the other pots with the same glaze, the glaze looks more fluid, and the crawling is more dramatic.

raw-glazed-pot.jpg

so I will try my other glazes to see what happens. if I can skip the biscuit firing I will save on gas, and my practice will become greener, which I would like.

the rest of the pots are here –  http://www.soozwhippet.com/pots17sept07/index.htm

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