Sunday 10 November 2013

Pottery shop now open!

Well, it's taken a while, but I've now added a shop to my website. I'm sure there'll be lots of teething troubles. I'm still unsure of the shipping rates. The shop has a facitliy that allows me to link shipping rates to a carrier's table of charges. I've spent quite a bit of time working on this, but still don't feel that it's accurate. My main concern is that I don't over charge people for postage.

Taking the photographs was also a challenge. However, I'm quite pleased with the results, given that they were all done with a cheap compact camera and a roll of wall paper for the background!

Let's hope people like my work enough to buy it!

www.henhousepottery.co.uk

Monday 4 November 2013

Results of yesterday's firing

So here are some pictures from yesterday's firing. The pics aren't great as I used the ipad and poor lighting, but you'll get the gist!. I'm really please with the plate on which I used 3 glazes and also the mug, which had a blue underglaze. I'll certainly be doing that again. The biscuit barrel should have had the whole rim glazed in one colour I think - I'd hoped that the red would run more into the cream, but hey ho! Overall, I'm quite pleased with the results. The glaze fired well to just below cone 6. Both clays (red and white) behaved and there was no bloating. I gave the glaze a 45 minute soak at cone 6 and I'm sure this helped settle the glazes. They're very glossy and smooth.





Saturday 2 November 2013

Here we go again!

Ground hog day once again! A new glaze, a new set of hopes. Is this the corner I've been hoping to turn? I really love making pottery, and that in itself is incredible given the amount of disappointment that it seems to bring me. I just don't ever seem to get the results that are living in my mind. Of course there are the occasional pieces that bring a pleasant surprise, but on the whole I seem to make frequent trips back to the drawing board after every new experiment.
So, to this batch of work. I've returned in the main to the white stoneware clay that I've used previously, as it fired predictably well, unlike the red stoneware that bloated at higher temperatures. However, saying this there are a couple of samples of the red clay body - the biscuit barrel in the foreground to name one. I've included these, as this next firing is only going to cone 6 and I'm optimistic that any bloating will be insignificant. The main cause for excitement are the new glazes I've invested in. I've bought some brush on glazes that promise amazing effects! I haven't gone mad and spent a fortune yet, as I've made this mistake before. So, this batch are all in just 3 glaze combinations of red and white. The firing instructions are straight forward, so I might not screw things up too badly...but now I've said this my immediate thought is 'pride comes before a fall!'