cone 9 is tipping...

Just a few moments towards the end of todays firing...The whole timeline of my kiln firing really needed to be changed as staying up til 2 just doesn't suit me anymore.

So this one not intentionally has sped up quite well.. I had it warming up for 3 hours then cranked the pilots to half way and brought in the big burners at lunchtime.. Deciding not to push the dampers in so far has proved a good choice at this point only the unloading will tell if the glazes have had enough reduction.. Nearly done cone 9 is tipping should be done by 8 tonight..yey i need some sleep....

a lil bit of shino...

I was trying to figure out how to spend my afternoon today since i visited the club this morning and my saturd'y buddies were elsewhere....and suddenly i got inspired to glaze...weird perhaps but that's what i did..

There's quite a bit of shino, some celedon and shino combo's I will be very careful with the brushing this time, who was it who said shino doesn't like underpants?? any way haven't forgotten and it's separation anxiety from now on for my shinos!!

As you can see my glaze trolley is out, I love wheels! and glazing on every table top. I'm not sure when the firing will happen but i hope this week some time and a few lovely ash glaze tests from Hollis, thanks and i'll post the results... well happy wkd all, chat soon.

it's all in the details...

and here she is kiln number 2 emptied today and some successes with the kiln packing and some not so pleasing bits about ash firing... the extra layer of fibre worked a treat and the pot didn't stick to the lid but it did stick to the base! grrr... so after a bit of grinding back the base today it's all smooth again..




a few inserts pics of my favourite parts, some lovely iron coming out of the body and the ash.. the porcelain slip fired up lovely on the bare clay and some parts that the ash was quite thin are my favs..





and the pair together, the final size shrunk back to about 45cm tall...

back to wheel then..I'm inspired...

tidy...

I do love a good tidy up...
After a massive tidy up of the garden and clean out of my studio last weekend all my glaze ingredients needed to get back on the shelves, so I took the opportunity to sort out duplicates and put up some more shelves... doesn't it look purdy??
And new / old storage shelves in the other corner of the studio for bisque wares. I do have more plans for a ware board rack too but who knows when that will happen as I'm not a fan of the circular saw so will need to wait for some help on that one.. more to do yet but it's getting way more organised in there..

and a sneak peek into kiln 1 today from wednesday's firing a couple of lids for the composite piece fell over but they're not stuck to anything.. I can't wait to unload and get a decent look at the composite piece..I was very aware of not getting any glaze runs in this kiln so the base has disposable glaze catchers a lots of grog to protect the kiln base..

Kiln 2 has the large coil and throw piece which I fired today with some creative roof raising as the piece was very close to the fibre lid.. I used a single thickness of fibre all round and raised the roof just enough to clear the pot. thanks to Jill for this tip.. Will find out soon how it all went and deliver the works to Campbelltown show this weekend.

yey for demos...

And thanks to ron for his demo on lidded forms, I though I'd give those a try this afternoon and being a similar thrown form to my bottles they weren't too hard to get the hang of...after checking the second video on rons you tube page I dashed back up to the studio to place a lil hole in each lid to stop them raising up off the bats...ta mucho mr P..

Along with some trimming from yesterday I'm trying an oval shape lid to fit a barrel that i fired without it's lid last year that warped and a three pointed bowl just for fun..

I also tested some software this week recording a segment of the Pre Conference with Christy Assaud, Andy Brayman, Ron Meyers, and Ellen Shankin as they demo at the NCECA Making Through Living—Living Through Making: Studio Pottery in 2010 at the Montgomery County Community College.

The pre conference ran overnight here. The software is called Snapz Pro X and has a demo version for 15 days. It basically records what you can see and hear on your computer screen. The result is really good not cinema quality but great for this type of online event. So a big thankyou to all who promo-ed this event and yey for demo software that I got to see some of it..