this morning I got up at seven and went straight up the garden in my pyjamas with a jacket on top, I just couldn’t wait any longer to see how the firing had gone. in fact the pyro was still saying 75C which is a little warm if one is to be careful. I risked it and opened up. I was so excited it was quite ridiculous. lots of lovely things.

the bricks come out one by one which prolongs the anticipation, and they have to be cleaned and stacked and the floor swept clean before one can attend to the pots.

a good look (a very special bowl there) and then I left them to cool down a bit more before unpacking.

first out were the little spoons. contrary to expectation they were easy to glaze. top left is a new glaze, meant to be green with silver flecks, more on that later, and the two rusty red ones are the only instance of another glaze test looking nice. I think it did not like to go over slips or oxides.

next were four little bowls on the top shelf. I was a bit worried that they would have been overfired, but white st thomas goes to very high temperatures and they were absolutely fine, in fact rather wonderful.

I have plenty more of these to finish.

this one (the very special one on the shelf in the picture above) was a last minute decision, I had painted the red iron oxide on it, but I hadn’t slipped it, and I glazed it with the chun. a revelation.

definitely to be repeated.

more shelf views

one of the new things was to try different types of metal oxides under the slip and chun

this was red iron oxide with a touch of nickel and manganese.

this one had more manganese

then this one had various oxides painted into the cross marks and the excess sponged off, and the glaze is my old barium dry glaze. I hate using it as it’s so poisonous until fired (and then still dangerous for use with food), but I need to use it to get rid of the dustbin full, and actually it has its uses.

out of the kiln.

then this is my new pale green frothy glaze. if I had used very fine silicon carbide instead of a coarsely ground one it would have been shiny pale green with silver flecks. however this is much more interesting.

this has nickel oxide under the glaze, and no slip.

and the littlest bowl

the big bowl needs more thought

this is the inside, nice but too subtle, and going to be horrendous to photograph.

another glaze test, a dry one, with lots of red clay in it. also it has a huge temperature range which is useful in my kiln.

another shot of this caddy, I’m very excited by this. it has a thin layer of slip, and that’s working very well with the oxide.

I tried salt and shells on some of the spoons. the shells didn’t work, but the salt did.

here’s all of it, except the big bowl. a very good firing, only one thing, it would have been better if I had got more reduction early on, as then I think the bare clay, ie the feet, would have been more toasty.