The firing results

Overall I'm really pleased with this firing. I left the reduction until cone 10 was reached and then soaked at this temp for an hour. The blistering seems to be less prevalent. A couple of the storage jars are cracked, but I think they were already present before firing, due to the clay freezing while wet.

Hot, hot, hot!!!

Almost there! Actually, I took this about an hour ago, and the kiln soon reached cone 10 after this. It's now in reduction.
I lit the kiln at 9:30 am and it's now 8pm. In the past I've put the kiln into reduction before reaching cone 10 and then turned it off almost as soon as it got there. I'm going to let it soak for an hour tonight though and then gradually reduce the gas pressure for a while afterwards. The reason being the glaze in the last firing was riddled with pin holes. Hopefully leaving it for longer will give the glaze time to heal itself. I've read that the pinholes are caused by gases escaping from the clay body. The clay that I'm using at the moment has more of a rough / porous looking surface when bisque fired and is possibly why the problem seemed more evident in the last firing. In previous firings with the finer white stoneware the pinholes haven't been much of a problem.
I'm also going to allow the kiln to cool for longer and won't open it until Tuesday night.
I'll try to post pictures then.

paintings and pots

Hello, sorry it's been such a long time since I posted! i do have an excuse, sorry meant 'reason'! I've made quite a bit of work recently, but quite a bit of it has been damaged by the freezing conditions. The sub zero temperatures arrived before the pottery had dried and unfortunately a lot of it split as the water in the clay froze. I did manage to salvage about half of the work which I'm due to glaze fire tomorrow. I'll bring it into the house in future!
I've also been doing some painting recently. Just quick still life studies in oil. I've been doing these mainly to get some confidence in the media, as I've not really done that many oil paintings before.
Tomorrow I fire the first glaze firing of 2013. Pictures to follow...
 

Almost there

This last few months have been very frustrating. We've been having a fair bit of work done to our house, with the result that the studio has become a temporary storage area (junk room). It's nigh on impossible to get in there to work at the moment. Most of my free time I've been using to decorate / fit bathrooms etc. When I have had the odd half hour free, I've been looking at other peoples work online. I've been thinking of getting back into painting again and so, have been looking at several artists blogs. Here are two of my favourites:
http://qiang-huang.blogspot.co.uk/
http://carolmarine.blogspot.co.uk/

I break for Christmas on Thursday and have planned to get the studio ready for work in the new year.

Nothing to report...yet

Just a quick update.

I've not been able to get in the studio for a few months, as we're in the process of extending our house. The studio has become a temporary storage area, so not pottery production has been possible. I have however bought a wood burning stove that'll hopefully keep me warm once I've freed up the space. We're almost at the stage where i can clear out the studio and get in again - just need the electrician to finish off.

Experiments in paint and glaze

Firing this weekend! It's been a while as I've just not produced enough work over the past few months (see previous post). However, I do now have enough work to fill the kiln and so feel full of anticipation as to what surprises I'm going to have in a few days time. I say surprises because I've tried a few experiments with the decorations. I've included pictures below of the glaze and oxide decorations before the firing, and I hope to show them after firing too. I tried using lots of wax on the designs as well as spattering cold wax and then adding oxides over the top. On the flower design I then scraped away the oxide carefully trying not to remove any of the galze beneath. You can actually see on the flower pot a patch where some of the glaze beneath did flake off - we'll see in the finished pot if this makes a huge impact on the final effect. The salt pig is my first attempt at one of these. I've had a few friends saying that they want one having seen this, so hopefully it'll fire well.

I've also tried to get a bit of painting done recently. I do love apinting, but the limiting factor is always good lighting. I have to paint in daylight to get the colours right. Painting under artificial light, even with daylight bulbs , is never ideal. Anyway I've added some photos of the paintings, so you can comment (bear in mond the photos were also taken under artificial lighting and so tend to be a bit yellow.

Hope you enjoy the work!




(flower design in wax - oxide spattered then scraped back to glaze - see theglaze falked off)

Patience...

Patience, that's what's needed in this game. Making pottery just can't be rushed and when you're limited to an hour a night it really does become a test of endurance. I managed to get an hours bike ride in tonight before an hours glazing and then an hours planning for tomorrow's day at work. It would be easy to resent either one of these activities (particularly the planning!), but in truth they all have their place in my life and all need a certain degree of commitment. So I've come to accept that the production of my pottery is a slow process and in that acceptance I hope to enjoy the time I have, just like I enjoy my time given to cycling or to family or to work. There's no point in resenting any of it, it's just life.

So, my pottery production progresses at a speed akin to continental drift. With that in mind I have to think about where I want to be in several months time. On Sunday we visited Tissington and during this trip we got talking to the owner of a farm tea room. We had quite a positive chat about possibly running a demo day sometime around Easter, where visitors can watch me make pottery and also have the chance of buying it. This means I have to start making the work now. I do have a batch of work which will be ready to be fired on Sunday, but much of that has been made for individuals.
In addition to the work that needs to be made I really want to make more Youtube videos as my previous film has been well received. So, patience is my new mantra!