First glaze firing in ages

This morning I anxiously opened the kiln to see the results of my first glaze firing in three months. I have been busy working on burnished and smoked work recently and have also been making the most of the good summer to head to the hills or the coast, hence no work to glaze for quite a while.

It was time to get back to working with my white St Thomas clay to replace stock and experiment with some new ideas.

Glazing is not my favourite part of the ceramics process, but a necessary evil to produce desired results (if the glazing works). Hence it is always with some trepidation that I open the kiln; will the glaze have run and welded my pots to the kiln shelves or each other? Will I have the glaze colours that I anticipated?

I was relieved when I opened the kiln this morning, everything intact and only one small glaze run. Stupidly ran my thumb over the blob of glaze left on one of my shelves resulting in much blood and a lesson learnt ( I hope!) Glaze is glass and can be very sharp...

Stock replacement included some of my small heart bowls.

small heart bowls (various glazes) ~ 8cm diameter

I also made some more yarn bowls (hoping to keep one for myself this time).

Experimentation with some of the new ideas filling my sketchbook gave the following results.

Shallow heart bowl ~12cm

I textured the slab by rolling onto textured wallpaper before cutting out and shaping the heart. When the clay was leather hard I cut the grooves. After bisque firing the grooves were filled with marble green glaze then covered with wax resist. Copper oxide was brushed into the texture and edges of bowl, then dipped into off white glaze. A process which I plan to repeat with larger bowls.

Teardrop vase h~17cm, d~14cm

This vase was glazed first with Tenmoku, then shiny white tin was poured/dotted on and gave the desired speckled effect - very happy (especially since the vase also holds water).

Teardrop vase h~14cm, d~13cm

Dipped part of vase in marble-green glaze and top in copper red, then dotted on both galzes in the unglazed band. Pleased with the colour of the dots, but in the top section the glaze was not thick enough, resulting in not enough colour. Also unglazed area is too large; I think that I may experiment trying to add more glaze and re-fire?

Once the cut on my thumb has healed enough I can go back to playing with some more clay.

A pyromaniacs dream day out!

On Saturday 7th September 2013 West Forest Potters celebrated their 30th Anniversary with a Firing Day on the idyllic farm of member Jane White. During the day we were given the opportunity to 'play with fire' and try out three different firing techniques, Raku, Smoke and Pit firing.

Prior to the event we were given detailed instructions as to what to prepare to get the most out of the day; this saw most of us making pots with the specified Ashraf Hanna clay (some of us also burnished and applied terra sigilatta, as recommended) and collecting an assortment of organic materials to place around our pots in the pit firing (banana skins, orange peel, seaweed, driftwood, shells, etc.)

We all found our way to Jane's farm, which nestles in a valley in the Chilterns, north of Henley, eagerly clutching our pots and other paraphernalia; and plenty of cake! We were greeted by warm sunshine and a host of different animals...

 

After a brief introduction to each of the different firing techniques available from our experts, we were let loose to prepare our pots in Jane's beautiful studio and surrounding garden.

Pots for Raku firing were dipped into a selection of raku glazes, with additional use of coloured underglazes and wax resist where desired.

To prepare for the smoke firing some people chose to mask areas using slip or by wrapping in tin foil.

For the pit firing, we surrounded our pots with an assortment of organic materials, copper wire and copper sulphate, then wrapped them in newspaper, ready to place in the pit later in the day.

 

Martin and Richard soon had 4 Raku kilns roaring away in the farm courtyard and were kept busy all day with a steady stream of pots to fire.

 

Unfortunately one of the first firings was not successful, not sure whether this was kiln being too hot, and pots came out a bubbled blacked mess. 

 

 

Both of my pots were in this firing, they were definitely not the turquoise and green that I had hoped for!

 

 Fortunately the rest of the firings went really well and produced some great results. (My pots had been re-fired and looked better, even if they were not quite what I was expecting.) 

Despite a poor weather forecast for the day, the sun managed to shine on us all day until we were due to put our pots into the enormous pit in one of Jane's fields, at this point the heavens opened and thunder rumbled around the valley.

During a brief respite in the torrential rain we went to have a look at the pit (reminiscent of an archeological dig) and Jane explained how she loads the pit for firing.

Reluctantly, we left our pots for Jane to place in the pit (once it had dried out) and set fire to and headed home along roads which had turned into streams.

Our pots have now been fired and safely returned to us; for some reason the pit firing did not produce its usual array of colours (perhaps we did not put enough organic material around our pots?).

However, after a polish with beeswax, here are my pit fired pods.

Pit fired 'Love bird' pods (~12cm height)

Pit fired pods (~9cm height)

Here are my Raku fired pots after their second firing, still not turquoise or green, but interesting?

Even though the final results of the day were not quite what I had anticipated, this does not detract from a fantastic day; beautiful location, like minded potters, sunshine and plenty of cake!

Many thanks to everyone at West Forest Potters.

Addicted to smoking?

Whilst on holiday on Pembrokeshire at the start of the school holidays I spent some time sketching a few ideas to work on when I got home. Here is one page from my sketchbook.

We saw a lot of shiny black beetles on the coast path and also around our tent, so I had plenty of opportunity to enjoy studying them. Ken even very kindly put one on my sketchbook, not realising that I was already drawing the shape to use as a starting point for a pot!

Here is the pot which was inspired by the beetles.

Smoked 'Beetle' pot (h~13cm)

The clay was burnished before bisque firing, then smoked twice to make the pot really black, then a final polish with beeswax.

I love walking on the Pembrokeshire Coast path, not just because of the fantastic views of sea and cliffs, but also for the abundance of wild flowers and insects. In July most of the foxgloves had finished flowering, but I took the time to study the seed pods, a sketch of one is on the page above and here is the ceramic pod created from this.

smoked 'Foxglove seed pod' (h~15cm)

Once again the clay was burnished before bisque firing; then mostly wrapped in foil with some slits to let in the smoke and a final polish with beeswax.

Another idea from my sketchbook page was realised below.

smoked 'twisted form' (h~20cm)

I enjoy making 'pods', often inspired by nature, here are some more which came out of the last firing.

smoked 'Crescent pod' (h~13cm)

smoked pod (h~13cm)

I also felt it was time to make a few more hearts and try smoking these.

smoked heart (9x11cm)

smoked heart (9x13cm)

Turning up the heat.

Despite the current heatwave I have been using the incinerator for some more smoking.
I am very pleased with the latest work to emerge, here are some pictures:-

Smoked 'Love Bird' pods (~15cm height)

Wrapping work in foil before smoking is producing some great results, the pods above were foil wrapped, as were the two vases below. The trick seems to be not to wrap too tightly so that some smoke can seep in to the foil.

Smoked vase (~15cm height)

Smoked vase with hole (~15cm height)

My first smoking of these vases was dissappointing as very little smoke had managed to get to the vases. Re-wrapped with foil much looser and into the incinerator again, much more successful.
















Love the pale grey smoke marks on this.



















I also masked some pieces with slurry again, here are two vases:-
The 'Zebra' vase fell over in the incinerator which is why I think that one side is darker.-

Smoked 'Zebra' Vase (~15cm height)

Smoked Fern Vase (~15cm height)

After my holiday I will be busy making more work to continue with my smoking adventures.

Caught smoking in the garden!

I guess not many people ask for an incinerator for their birthday!

Not surprisingly, no such present was wrapped for me back in March! However, I was given money to spend, so had soon purchased a shiny new incinerator.

It took me a while to have time to produce some burnished test pieces to put into my new toy. Unfortunately my first burn was not a success; as I stood nearby and listened to the sound of exploding clay! There were probably various reasons for this, too boring to detail.

Further research, new clay, lots of burnishing whilst sitting in the sun or listening to Radio 4 and Bisque firing to 950 C saw me ready to try again...

Rattle Stones (max 8cm)

I used a variety of techniques to create these and I was very pleased with the results.

I particularly like this stone which had been coated with green slip before burnishing. After Bisque firing, I wrapped the stone with plastic mesh, then painted on slurry, before removing the mesh and smoking, cleaning and a final polish of beeswax.







The next firing/smoking produced this set of 'pods'.

Smoked pods (max 12cm)

These were made using a new clay which is supposed to be good for withstanding the sharp temperature increases found in smoke and pit firing. The different clay may explain the darker colour, but this may also have been due to higher temp in the firing. Lots more experimenting before I can hope to understand the process.

This is my favourite of this set of pods.
Before placing in the bed of sawdust in the incinerator, the pod had been wrapped in newspaper filled with sawdust and a dried banana skin! I believe it is the effect of this skin which has given the lovely bluey-grey mottling.










Another firing (I was on a roll!) saw these pods emerge...

Smoked pods 2 (max 11cm)

Same clay as my first set of pods, but less sawdust and hence less smoke giving a paler colour (I think?).

I wrapped most of this pod in foil, leaving top clear and making 3 slits in the foil, before smoking. Delighted with the result, definitely one to repeat on larger pieces of work.

This pod took on a very peculiar shape whilst the clay was still quite damp when I accidentally knocked it from my work bench! Since the piece was still intact, despite being a very different shape, I decided to let this be a happy accident and continued to finish the pod.
I used spray mount to hold the fern leaves in place whilst covering with slurry, removing the leaves before smoking. Love the clear image of the leaves made by the smoke; another idea to be repeated.

Time to start making more pieces for smoking! 

A runaway success!

My new yarn bowls were spotted at Thrive by a couple of members of the local Knit 'n' Natter group, who thought they were wonderful and that they would be liked by other members of the group, so I was invited to their next meeting. My bowls were greeted with great interest and lots of orders; to date I have made and sold 11 bowls, with another 3 orders outstanding.

Here are some of the bowls which I have sold

This bowl had copper oxide on the rims and in the base of the bowl. After glazing with a shiny white tin stoneware glaze, some pieces of 'sea glass' were placed into the bottom of the bowl before firing. I was surprised when I opened the kiln to see the pink glow; I believe this is due to the tin in the glaze attracting cadmium (which may have been in the glass).

Once again I brushed the rims and base with copper oxide, this time I used a glaze called Copper Red which strangely gives a pale blue colour, normally with no hint of the 'Red' in the name of the glaze. However, this time I did get a hint of red, possibly caused by cadmium again?

This bowl is glazed with marble green which gives a wonderful array of greens and blues.

Copper oxide with vellum off-white glaze. I put a large lump of sea glass in the bottom and croosed my fingers that it would melt well; delighted with the brilliant green!

Copper oxide and Blue-grey glaze. The sea glass in the bottom looked to be a very pale blue so the brilliant blue after firing was a surprise, but a very pleasant one!












Whilst I am enjoying making (and selling) my yarn bowls, I am also trying to make sure to find time to work on other things and to experiment with two new clays, but that's another blog...