![\"2sky\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/janewheeler.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/2sky.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n always a bit scary the first peer inside .. but looking good.<\/p>\n yes, cone eleven is a bit bent, most of the firings I have had this summer have left cone eleven pretty straight.<\/p>\n the reveal – after all that struggle and heartache, this big pot looks gorgeous.<\/p>\n I got the beautiful blue I wanted<\/p>\n it’s very crazed and rather like quartz crystals<\/p>\n one of my “haptic” marks cut into the clay surface<\/p>\n that blue is just lovely …<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n it turned out that the tall pod form I put in at the last minute hadn’t been glazed on the lower half.<\/p>\n 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<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n a pale droplet from chun and slip over a porcelain layer impressed with wisteria stems.<\/p>\n another impressed bottle. I think the impression (oak leaves) works really well with the watery oxide under slip and chun.<\/p>\n another look at the big one. on this side the oxide painting is very strong<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n