underfired soda pots!!!

Warning many images follow.....

Just a little exposure adjustment this time :)) no real photoshopping...

What the??? blogger just ate my text....grrrrr

now what was I saying??? It seems the soda has done some work while these pots sat waiting to be fired on the shelf.  I have noticed the same with the shino glaze it gives the soda ash time to do it's thing the longer the pots sit waiting to be fired.... noice!!
It also appears there's some carbon work from the twigs I put into the firebox..

Any suggestions are welcome about this firing and for the next one, cheers ang..

my favourite...

Anna's pots

underfired shino..

a little amber brushed and wiped away..plus carbon

front

same mug back...

the porcelain show some promise...

ooops underdone!

soda cracked...

 

Don't ask me... I don't really know what I'm doing!!!! You can however leave suggestions for the next firing..

soda test firing...

just scratching away...

Just scratching away slowly at the studio clean up....

I finally got my ware board posts up after a comedy of errors of checking the dowel size and tripping to the hardware to get a drill i bought the one that was the exact size as the dowels dur!!!! thinking that as i drilled the hole there would be some give....learned that one now :P

 new ware board posts

the last of the platters

So i've just finished the last 8 of the platters. Changing the clay body to LGH, I tried the warm sculptural but like this one better and being much more open its a 30# and has a wider firing range i'm hoping to be over the dunting issue.....losing those 2 kiln loads of platters is enough for me.... I also gave it a bit of arm throwing action i remembered seeing in a Simon Leach video i think it was Guy Wolff and pretty cool the centering and compressing is so much quicker...

Did i mention i remember having the dunting issue earlier last year or the year before with a lovely c6 blue crackle glaze and i though it was the glaze tension causing the dunting back then and having the same 50% - 80% loss each firing...now i think it's the body so I'm feeling brave and will revisit that one, it's a lovely glaze..

Today's adventure will be firing my test kiln for cone 6 soda with a sagar setup which will hopefully protect the fibre, pics later no doubt on how the adventure turns out as i really have no idea what i'm doing...hehhehe

its tidy up time...

Just a few summer projects..... kiln baby is on the menu for some renovation...We're going to add some height redo the exit flue and a new door...

     Just a tad of clay recycling to do....

 and look sunshine woohoo!! a few balloons to clean up from pops wkd party.....I had a bunch of them out the front hanging from the enormous tree that is my front garden.... was v..cool! but no picture too much chard i'm afraid, I think my niece may have some photos.... will have a search through them.. :P

and last of all it doesn't look too bad but the studio needs a tidy up and next week a clay extruder and pug mill is arriving.. it's second hand but will help massively with the clay recycling...yey!!! must make some room...

and my first show to work for in the new year the Campbelltown Art Show notification arrived last week so big pots here we come!!

Cheers for hanging out this year!! for all the great chats and controversy too, it has been a very busy year and plans for the new year afoot... more on that soon. Happy Christmas and hope you find some great company for the season and see you in the new year :)) cheers...

windy street...

well thats it the end of marketting season for another year......and of course it went out with a woosh!!

Saturday turned out to be lovely weather for Pops 80th birthday in the garden after spending most of the week shovelling and sweeping and tidying and trimming the last thing we needed was a wet afternoon! My friend Kem and 2 others played strings for a spot in the arvo which was lovely the only request from pops for his birthday so he was happy skipping and dancing around :P

and then all night saturday wind and rain!! oh no just in time for stirling market, what a reputation to have..the wet market place!! sunday we had spots of sun which was lovely in between wind gusts, rain and hail :))

and then part 2 of sunday marketeering was leigh street in the city another blocked off street for the west end christmas carnival....lots of great music I arrived just before the funk band started made one more sale and then that was pretty much it for the night...nice spot though and with nice weather it would have been a fantastic day but you cant pick em!!

I had a text from Ali during the day that a small marquee disaster ended with a marquee half way up the building attached to a pole and luckily only one cup hit the ground..

A lovely spot is Casablabla where i grabbed some pizza for dinner for Anna and me but no wine allowed up our end of the street and fair enough I prob would have sat in my chair all night after that anyway...:)) so super day despite the challenging outdoor conditions right now its time for summer!!! you can bet it will crank up into the new year christmas day we're expecting a 34C at this point..  so finally so warm after having 5 layers on yesterday, kinda crazy for this tine of year....

here's some pics of leigh street Anna and her lovely apples, our neighbours and down the street where the music stage is and quite a bit of salsa dancing last night and a pic of Alis end at a very quiet pack up time ....

SO last minute CHRISSY SHOPPING moment I still have lots of lovely bowls and mugs and tiles and plates, let me know if you want to come around to my place for a look... :))

total rubbish firing...

I was so peaved by this firing its taken a while to post about it....I just wonder do I have to learn something every firing??? really???

Well here goes... I was having loads of trouble getting the kiln to reduce and after the first firing of kaynine I thought it was all figured out but no!! there was a variable that didn't cross my mind until way later in the day....

I ended up giving up on reduction and just hoping that the wood i'd put in would make it ok..

NUP!!! one tiny spot of shino looking gorgeous where a piece of wood sat in the bowl hmmmmmmm.......

So here's what I think happened when the kilns were tested and approved the guy changed the burner air settings, apparently the kilns were emitting too much carbon.. well what can i say i need that carbon or my shinos don't happen grrrrrrr... if you want to see gorgeous shinos head over to Hollis's page!

The temp eventually flew up but the cones wouldn't drop and can i say confused!!

anyhoo the holiday is approaching and i can get my kiln fixed and some new tools arriving soon.. well second hand ones and i'm excited... hopefully this will fix my elbow and shoulder problem and just make the studio full of more stuff woohoo..

Well there you have it no flamage from kaynine an odd temp reading, some new bowls for this wkd 2 markets stirling and the west end on sunday and some very pale faced shinos...cheers all, busy wkd coming up it's my dads 80th birthday party too and I still have some gardening to finish after work tonight..

outside...

Ahhh some outdoorsie fluff for ya...

I had a job up at Cuddlee Creek today in the hills and would you believe I have never been to this wildlife park?? I was greeted by a bunch of emus... not sure of the technical term for multiple emus but a bunch will do... the park has all the fluffy cuddley animals there along with some albino wallabies and lots of sheep and goats and pesky animals too..

It sure is green out there at the mo and heaps of water gushing down gorge rd, I couldn't resist a stop by the side of the road for a few pics..

I must get my head down tomorrow work to catch up on and pots to be trimmed too.. I still have a kiln load of test pots to make for the new clay body glaze test firing...get cracking ang!!!!

rain, hail, no shine....

And just because we haven't had enough rain this year....this storm should top up the reservoirs!!

This afternoon i took a very stormy ride into town to the 'urban cow studio' to take in some new wares and I haven't seen this much rain in ages...it stopped the cricket folks....Ha! not that i know anything about that or care much but apparently town was full this wkd with drunken cricket fans all 50,000 of them...
What i want to know is where was the rest of adelaide's crowds??? hiding probably, there was a music festival in town too which would account for another few thousand peeps.. the port got rained out on sunday otherwise it would have been a lot busier too...

anyhoo here's some lovely new bright works now at the 'urban cow studio' I also delivered 3 new teapots which i have quick snaps of ... you know same old story I haven't got my soft box yet, slacker!!! Town was so flooded i new i wouldn't make it to my appointment on time if i took a detour to the photographic place, so another day i will get that..

4 seasons in one day...

This weekend marathon market was a 2 dayer at the Port and talk about rotating weather conditions we had them all... Last night we headed to the beach for dinner and it was still 30 deg C... now it's raining still and rather windy after an afternoon of raining out the market and a scorcher saturday of 37deg... talk about 4 seasons in one day...

Ali, Rose and myself shared a stall at the Ports Artists Market we met some great peeps and amongst electrical problems for stall holders everyone kept their cool in the heat :)) This wkd was the Arts festival and the Celtic Festival so lots of music some more groovy than others and a few artists demos too..
Well i'm done for the night, watching some Yeasayer on Jules Holland from last friday nights show and getting myself organised for next week... more pots to be made and glazing to be done...a kiln to be fired somewhere in there and work to take to town to be sorted...

have a great week peeps and enjoy the sunshine in my lil clip with some footage courtesy of Ali too....

slippin...

All slipped up and off to the club we go....

All the pots got some porcellainous stoneware slip today drying outside and looking vaguely like cheese is the pre slip product which then got bashed to smitherines with a metal bar which i just happened to have handy..

..then whipped up like a milkshake and ready to use! the lil fellas are now at the club waiting for a bisque load...and kaynine is loaded again ready to fire up the latest batch of shinos.. I just know i'm going to run out of days this week and really wishing I could have got my lil birdie bowls through for this wkd, oh well....

new tests...

So here's one of the new test bodies for the platter clay... only one way to deal with disaster jump right back in... at the end of last week i was throwing some new bodies a 30 mesh warm body, some of my recycled and some bennetts stoneware ordinary body some are very groggy and the 30 mesh warm is my fav so far, tomorrow they will all get a wash of porcelainous slip...There are 3 platters and a bunch of kiln filler bowls in this batch...

Then i need to get this load through in order to complete my commission for the restaurant.. woohoo!

market eh...

You wouldn't believe this was summer!! freezing yesterday at market began with a drizzle and spotted throughout the day with some lovely fine rain for packing up! Fully rugged up with gloves on i don't think i took them off all day, brrrrrrrrr..

Here's a few pics of our new stall setup we have 2 entry points and it doesn't get congested anymore peeps can wander in and out without getting stuck, sometimes we had such a blockage at the front of our space... so yey!! and more hanging space to come too with some lovely bamboo panels..

The new wares got plenty of attention which was nice ... and a snap of rose carving one of her masks a nice bit of clay therapy for the afternoon, so some of those will be up next wkd at the Art at the Hart Pt Adelaide, we set up friday night for the wkd event, i will do some vids as we are all demoing across the wkd.. Ali and I will do some throwing, Ali will be printing and Rose will be doing some stamping with the wood blocks, should be good come on down if you're in town...