a lil market fare...

New Shino and my clay....YEH!!!!

Are pics ok....I feel so flat out at the mo... getting work fired for shows before my trip, they're timed down to the last minute!!

My buddy Rose is the Queen of the setup!!!!.... she just has the touch you know...

Rosa doing her thing!!!!!

 Peas in a pod couldn't do this again if I tried!!!!

Beautiful but very chilly day at Stirling yesterday....  we have a cold and damp spot and search for the sun constantly.....I promise I wont scare it off by exclaiming it's presence next time :P hehehehhe....

Rose's lovely tea light lanterns....gorgeous we sold heaps!!!!

shinos baby...

mmmmm... not bad considering the underfiring..

The celedon's will need a refire but everything else came out noice!!!


intro 'The Planets Introduction And Variations On A Theme' By Rossini played by the London Symphony and 'The Cave' by Mumford and Sons

finito...

Pot #2 all finito taken pre rim and clean up stage I had to get on it quick smart yesterday with firing the kiln my studio was warming up so it's now done and covered in layers and layers of placky....I'll peel these off tomorrow prepare for slip layers and some marking then the drying can happen..

Post Bisque fire of pot #1 she survived nicely...

A refire shino cup much nicer on second firing, I wasn't happy with the firing from k9 it was quite pale.. 

My firing yesterday was going really well and ahead of schedule at 6pm when cone 8 started to tip.......I plunged the kiln into a fairly heavy reduction loading it with chips of wood and shutting in the dampers, the atmosphere looked nice and cloudy inside with flames leaping out of every exit....then a couple of hours later disaster!! the tank started icing up and the one I thought still had fuel in it was just about empty....I watered down the tank and got approx another hour out of it before the burners just died out.. oh well!!

 a good cone 8 I was hoping for and on cracking the kiln a short time ago the shinos look good....smiles!!! the celedons need a refire they are very opaque but for the most part a very even firing cone 8 top to bottom...I'll unload tomorrow for a closer inspection...

And another refire shino very interesting with heaps of carbon trapping

Lovely 50/50 blend of brown local clay and SWE

And a nice all rounder colour carbon trapping and smooth B7 combo!!

Group shot :))

playing favourites...

This lil guy is quite possibly the fav from my last raku firing!

I gave them a quick scrub up and under a somewhat dirty green was this gorgeous turquoise colour glaze..

 And a couple of really loose sketches for some more tiles, complete of course with a note to self to leave more raw clay body space... I tend to get carried away making images and forget that the nicest thing about this body is the iron spots that emerge during the firing, they really are too nice to cover up all the time...

So a few more of these and I'll be happy to move into the firing schedule, they will make nice additions to my current pieces for the the Terrace Xpo...

It really has been a shocking week watching the devastation in Japan and hearing and reading first hand accounts from aussies living in Japan and notably Euan the Potter who has blogged about his experiences and getting his family far away from the reactor fallout... It's just horrific and makes ya feel rather insignificant against such disasters and the power of nature.. A tough week indeed and work here at home has been totally loopey with a range of events... I won't go into all of it but I left a job yesterday as the police arrived to settle a dispute at the property I was at....yikes!! all calmed down today as i returned to do the job...

Just about to head up to the studio post lunch..I getting ready for a gas firing this wkd and want to get in some lil pieces to bring with me to the states a few gifts me thinks along the 'Doug and Hannah slipware tour'...I'm looking forward very much to meeting the US crew of bloggers along the way and a couple of days with Judy Tavill in New York... woohoo! should be fun.. I reckon my feet are about to be walked off!!!

up that hill and down that mountain...

I've had a great afternoon shooting these guys...this is my setup at the beginning of the shoot but not how it ended up!!

 The lighting tripod ended up on some bricks and leaning across the table almost vertically above the work and leaning towards me and held in place by a heavy bag of stuff so it wouldn't slide away into the cupboard...and thanks to my handy friend the derek for the phone advise :))

 Just abit more processing to do with these images and some nice cropping and they'll be done....woohoo learned so much today..

Trying to think of a new name for these tiles there's so much going on and playing with depth or lack of is challenging the 2d space...so 'up that hill and down that mountain' or is it just 'slip and slide'?

lil birdie returns...

I dig saturdays :)) the phone rarely rings and I get uninterupted studio time....

These tiles are for the expo I mentioned yesterday....it's so great returning to this form after a break.. Ideally another session at this next week will make me happy that I've put the time in developing a story with succession with these tiles..

and lil birdie printing on some mugs jugs and lidded forms....The glaze combo that came out with the cups last week will be where I'm going with these, i finally found a way to use the yellow glaze with a slip trailer over the green and blue glazes it looks just like a watermark where they meet.. so nice...

driving like a granny...

Oh some groovy stuff goin down this week.... I dropped into one of the places I have some work this week for a chat to see how things are going and was invited to take part in an interiors expo in May this year... It's a really cool idea a setup with all kinds of gear furnishings and everything that goes with it... more when I know the details, so I really got inspired today to make a few more tiles :))

Some earthenware tests and a midfire yummo green...

And my car load for the trip home...some new cups and a few bowls about to get the shino treatment :))

you know it's crazy around here on the short treck home, I need to hang a 'driving like a granny' sign up in my window... you think they'd be used to me by now turtling around the round- a -bouts :P

slipware after all #2...

A few details of the marks I made on Saturday, two of the three Accidental Terracotta platters survived the slip to this point.. firing tomorrow and hopefully I have a result as I've entered one into the Campbelltown art show..

I think at this stage they are about 38cm.. more shrinkage to come

I didn't attempt to slip the outside of the wares they are very loose and whatever dripped over the outside whilst pouring the inside I have left there..

Thanks peeps for all the notes on my previous post.. I have some good info to go on now for the next firing..and hopefully we can tweak the gas pressure enough to get a good result, the clay body used by others is out of my hands!!!

your help needed...

Here's the firing results from K9 on the wkd.... as you can see we have a rather large crack in the big pot and a tad over fired as I knocked the cones from their perch whilst adding some twigs to the firing only the cone 10 remained but i wasn't sure which cone it was until the unloading today.... belinda's dragon now has extra claws....

We did a pre warm up on friday evening and the pots were still warm sat morning when we lit the kiln again, it was still a long firing the kiln only has one pilot and one main burner its a 'port a kiln' model

and the firing log is below and ideas on the cracking issue...

any comments greatly appreciated.... I have done this to one of my pots before in a gas kiln and just assumed the firing was too fast and the shock too great....or is it a cooling crack???

Will get details about the clay body used soon....it looks fairly dense to me..

poured not swished...

Would you believe glaze incarnation #9????

 Poured not swished...It's variation is just overwhelming one might say!!!!! pfffft.. So anyhoo I'm liking the overlap areas and no crawling and no dunting so happy yes!!!???

 A little wax on wax off....lovely black satin glaze...

the new batch of glaze just lovely.....

and I quite like the old glaze batch remnants with less copper.....noice and very smooth