glazing and firing big pots part two

the firing progressed normally despite St Jude’s storm – in fact by the afternoon it was just windy and mostly clear.

2sky

I took it a little higher than usual – gave it an extra half hour after cone ten had gone over, and then another half hour soaking in oxidisation.

2flame

this morning it had cooled to 89C so by this afternoon after a little judicious opening of spyhole/flue/burner ports, I could start to take out the bricks.

2thefirstlook

always a bit scary the first peer inside .. but looking good.

2peeringin

yes, cone eleven is a bit bent, most of the firings I have had this summer have left cone eleven pretty straight.

2thereveal

the reveal – after all that struggle and heartache, this big pot looks gorgeous.

2bigbluebase

I got the beautiful blue I wanted

2bigunbase

it’s very crazed and rather like quartz crystals

2hapticmark

one of my “haptic” marks cut into the clay surface

2beautifulblue

that blue is just lovely …

2sadbowl

on the other hand, this bowl is not lovely at all. I keep trying to get a bowl with a relatively smooth inner surface, and they seem to get worse.

2group

it turned out that the tall pod form I put in at the last minute hadn’t been glazed on the lower half.

2darkbidori

I got some wonderful dark chun droplets over the pink grogged stoneware, which was actually a little over-cooked and stuck to the batt wash on the shelf

2smallflagon

a nice selection of small bottles and flagons, different clay bodies reacting in different ways to the combination of oxide, slip and glaze; I made a decision to vary the thicknesses, so I got some smooth pale ones and some dark crawly ones.

2crack

the medium sized flagon cracked across its base and a bit flaked off too. that’s the third piece made from the same batch of clay that has cracked. it was some cheap “school” clay, which I’ve never had a problem with before, and I had wedged it up with some grog, and probably some scrap clay.

2paledrop

a pale droplet from chun and slip over a porcelain layer impressed with wisteria stems.

2oakleafotherside

another impressed bottle. I think the impression (oak leaves) works really well with the watery oxide under slip and chun.

2bigunoxidedribbles

another look at the big one. on this side the oxide painting is very strong

2bigundribbles

and on this the slip had a good old dribble. tomorrow I’ll take high resolution photos of the firing. it’ll be interesting to see if I can pick up the subtleties of the blues and greys accurately.

2bigunandlittluns

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