shattered

Obliterated, destroyed, demolished.

Never had this happen before.  A crack or two, yes, but not blown up.  This piece was to be similar to the bird bath pictured below.
The results of my C.C.I .(ceramic crime investigation):   I can eliminate moisture. The piece was bone dry.  I believe the cause behind this mess was contaminated clay.  The remains contained a few tiny curls, about twice the thickness of hair and only about 3/8 inch long, of what appeared to be a lighter colored clay.  My guess is, that while I am very careful to clean the wheel, tools, etc. when switching from tan stoneware to white stoneware  I was less concerned switching from white to tan.  I guess I figured it wouldn't be noticeable. Yes, but what about the different shrinkage rates?  Oh.  There are bits and pieces of this thing all over the kiln, including the elements.  The good news is that the berry bowl I had sitting inside it came out unscathed. Same for a couple of saucers to the side of it. Everything else in the kiln, made with the lighter colored clay, came out fine.  Of course, it was a commission.  Natch.

I just felt the need to add a pretty picture.  I posted this finial on Etsy a few days ago. Slowly trying to get the shop up and running again.  The leaves, with their burgundy coloring looked so nice next to this glaze.

glazed finials

A couple of finials from the last firing.  The glaze on the first one is Weathered Bronze, second one, I think, is just called Bronze.
Please excuse the junk in the background.  I thought about using my little photo booth set-up but liked the way the sun was coming in the window at the moment, probably aided by the brightness of the snow. 

glaze decoy

In the process of glazing here and Miss Billy seems to find the goings on to be quite fascinating.  Here she is snooping around the bird finials.

I've found it's best to leave a container of clean water nearby when Miss Billy wants to be involved in the glazing process.  Otherwise it is all too tempting to dip one's paw in the glaze. I have also learned not to leave a glaze bucket  unattended.  The five gallon ones are no problem, but some of my smaller buckets are all too accessible.  I came back to my glaze work once to find iron-red paw prints running across my table and on the basement floor. I've noticed that Miss Billy now hesitates when she comes across an open bucket of glaze.

Perhaps the experience of licking glaze off her paws  haunts her. I still provide the decoy container of clean water just in case she is tempted- for her health, as well as to keep the mess to a minimum.

 

 

hodge podge

I was back to my old tricks with this kiln firing.  Had a lot of different items that required different glaze treatments so I took a long time getting this kiln load ready.   

 I'll pass these on to a jewelry friend down at the farmer's market.  I have no talent in this area.  She'll know what to do with them.  I'm interested to see what she thinks of the bird pendant.

 I almost cannot do a firing without putting in some tests.  On the left is a black slip using a mason stain for color.  Top line is under glaze, bottom over.  I was interested in getting a nice sharp line for drawing black over white.  This does it, but it's really dry.  The other is a glaze (the green) I've used before, but this test tile is a lighter clay than my usual.  Tested it with an Albany slip glaze I've had around for awhile.  I tested this Albany slip glaze a couple years ago but hadn't used it on any pots yet.  It was fine then, other than it was supposed to be tan, but obviously is much darker.  I wanted to see what these two glazes looked like together.  I was envisoning a dark glaze on the outside of a bowl, the light green inside.  You can see how it shivered off. I also used it on the rim and inside of a vase. Upon opening the kiln I saw the rim of the vase had shivered.  That was yesterday. This morning I went to pick it up and saw it was cracked all over.  I suppose it was caused by the tension of the poor fitting Albany slip glaze inside the pot.    

Better. I refired a couple of candleholders that looked a little flat to me.  Brushed on a little rutile and clear glaze here and there.

 Something a little different for the acorn finial.  I like it , but realize this may have been better to come out with a couple of months ago.  Kind of fallish looking.

 I had quite a few tiles in the kiln.  This darker clay can stand alone nicely.  My regular throwing clay has some color, but looks bland next to this clay. I might try getting the hangers on the backs of these tonight.  I still have a table full of bisque ware waiting to be glazed, though. This morning when I went downstairs to the basement where I work I could only stand and stare for a few minutes- so much to do I couldn't decide where to start. 

Still need to work on photographing this flat stuff if I'm ever going to put it on Etsy. 

lightbox experiment

I've been wondering how to take the professional-looking photos like I see of some people's pottery.  Recently, I read about how to make a lightbox to achieve the effect I'm looking for.  You cut the top, left, right and front sides out of a sturdy box.  I know what you're thinking- what's left?  But you leave only the edges for support like a frame, then cover sides and top with interfacing.  The interfacing lets the light through, but cuts down on the glare- a problem with photographing pottery. And lighting from different angles reduces shadows. These are my first attempts from last night.  I definitely need to tweak before I get the results I'm looking for.  This finial is from a firing I did Saturday.  The glaze, by the way, is new.  I don't think these photos do a great job showing the color.  It is a nice stony matte- some taupe gray with blue-green flecks and a little warm tan of the clay body showing through.   

This view, on white poster board background, still shows glare.  One problem is the left light is not a daylight bulb so I have a yellow tint on that side and right side light was higher wattage. 

Here is the set-up.  I taped one layer of interfacing on sides and top, then draped some more over box when I found one layer wasn't enough. The posterboard is attached near top back of box with a couple of tacks.  Used my son's old computer desk to set this on so it would be at a comfortable height to photograph.



This picture is lit from the top only.  I used black posterboard this time.  I didn't like most of the photos with this background.  I guess this sound strange, but the black posterboard looked too much like posterboard.

Another on black background lit from top.  Yep, a lot of figuring out to do yet.

Finials and glaze indecision

These are the finials I've been working on lately.  Decided to make all of these with birds on top.  I don't know if I'll do any other designs.  Seems like most people go for the ones with the birds.  I have a couple of glazes in mind for these.  I've only recently tested the one so it's not exactly a proved glaze.  It looks promising though- sort of a stoney blue-green grayish matte. The other is more of a satin green, a little bit like oxidized copper, but darker.
It's been a bit of a relief to do some purely decorative work.  Sometimes the workmanship of making sure a lid fits properly and has the right shape for the jar, etc. gets to be, well, work. 

I'm undecided about this glaze.  I made these plates for a customer who previously ordered mugs and bowls in the same glaze.  It's called "Cream Rust", and you can see where it is a cream where thick or overlapped.  Nice, but I've found it doesn't show the stamped designs I like to use, or lettering like I used on the mug below.

Different glaze.  Similar, but more burnt orange than rust.  I made this for the Cabin Fever Run, which is a Marietta cross country team fundraiser.

View 2:  I like the way the lettering shows up with this glaze. When I tried this with the "Cream Rust" it got the hammer treatment.