Big pots.

I've been quite busy recently, getting pots made. I made a few tea / coffee cadies and posted some pics on my facebook page. This led to someone asking if I could make a bread crock for them. I don't tend to throw large pots very often as they take up so much space in the kiln. However, as I have a couple of tall pots sitting on shelves in the studio waiting to be fired I thought that one more large pot could make a kiln full of these bigger pots. The bread crock was made from around 9lbs of quite stiff clay. It was a real wrestling match getting this centred and I probably could have saved myself a workout by using softer clay; lesson for next time!
I've just finished lugging the bread crock and I'm pondering what if any decoration it'll have when fired. I also threw a handful of soup bowls tonight with a flat rim that'll be great for adding decoration to.
I'm really enjoying making pottery now that I've fitted a stove in the studio. it's so much easier to find the motivation to go into the studio when it's warm in there!

I included the mug in the picture to give some indication of the size. The picture on the left was pre lugging. Sorry about the poor quality of the second picture.

 

stampers

I made some stampers for the coffee and tea caddies. I'd have like some different lettering, as these weren't easy to remove from the clay after pressing in. I did dab talc over the clay, which helped a little. hopefully i'll have some pots to use these on soon.

Great article on reduction firing

I've jsut found a really good article about reduction firing a gas kiln, written by Linda Arbuckle. See it here: http://lindaarbuckle.com/handouts/reduction_fire.pdf
I've clearly still got lots to learn, but thanks to articles like this hopefully each firing should see better results. Looking forward to the next kiln load now!

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.