another firing!

Last week I did some work getting ready for the firing Ryan is doing today, mostly cleaning the dust off the pieces (they've been sitting on the shelf for a while), putting underglaze in my signatures, and waxing them.  I also painted the little test cup you can see at the bottom, to see how the black underglaze looks under a couple of Ryans glazes.

All my stuff glazed, and a couple of ethans pieces in the back.  All I'm using this time is a blue glaze and Ryan's green/orange/black.  All of these pieces are wadded and ready to salt-fire!

Ethan spent around three hours painting his little pot with underglazes :P  He is as anal as me sometimes...

Lastly, a dog of course.  My family went fishing on the bay in MA, and there was a boat dog!  Half wolf and half german shepard, 'pal' was a super sweet and beautiful dog.

Kiln opening!

Ryan opened the kiln today!  In his opinion, "you gotz sum NIZZ3 pot_z over here" :P  I am pretty happy with the results.  I still don't like the carved cat pieces very well, but I do like them better than before now that they are glazed.  I think Ryan's Blue Black Orange glaze is my favorite on the stoneware.

I am really pretty happy with most of the stuff, the G/B/O glaze looks great on the carved pieces.  They ended up a little darker than I imagined, but I think it looks pretty good.

 

The bowls and the carved cups turned out really nicely.

This little jug had a dark blue glaze on it, but the glaze was super duper thick when I put it on, and I ended up wiping and shaking some of it off... so it may turn out a little odd once I have it out of the kiln :P

And some of the glazes on b-mix cups, the dark blue on the left and the g/b/o on the right. I still really like Ryan's glaze, the difference in color between the carved and flat surfaces is wonderful!

One of these is plain clay, one of them has a flashing slip on it, and I can't even tell the difference!  The porcelain and b-mix pieces I salt-fired at school generally had a lot more flashing on them. I dont really like them plain in this firing.

Getting ready to fire

I've started carving on the jugs, and I am pretty happy with the way they are turning out.  I really love the contrast in textures between the smooth surfaces and the carved.

Lorraine let me take a picture of her since I was holding a treat, normally she runs away when I hold my phone out. She is a complete sweetheart, but very shy.

These are some of Ryans pieces that went into the firing today. I got to sand all of the tumblers and then wipe them down :) The big barrel thing had too much glaze on it, so I got to wipe it all off; super fun :P

Here is the kiln mostly loaded up. I got a few cups in, mostly just to test out Ryans glazes on my carvings. They are all stoneware though, so I will need to throw some b-mix tests too.