Lizella tests and other things out of and for the kiln...

For those of you who followed along with the Yunomi workshop a couple of weeks back, I finally glazed and fired some of the lizella that we mixed up and threw that week, and here are some results:

I meant to use a clear glaze, but used celadon, which
gave an olive green result on the clay

trio of lizella fluted shots - the copper green and tenmoku
one on the left will make it worth doing more ... satin white w/
wax resist in the middle, and tenmoku over porcelain slip on the outside
plus some underglaze brushwork. Dark, but it's there!

Also in the kiln, the first batch of mugs for Izzy's - these will be in the shop soon, with more coming out of the next kiln.

some of the mugs headed to Izzy's on Haywood...

A little member spotlight - Crazy Green Studios member Katie has been working on mugs, and has been a mug machine! This little sweetie was in this kiln.

Katie's fun mug...

Back to filling the bisques so I have ware for the reduction kiln in a couple of weeks (yikes!). One of the newer forms in the works are candlesticks. I used to throw them a lot ... a lot ... got rather sick of them and have completely ignored them for the past couple of years. I'm making a pair for a wedding registry, but I'm also making work for a new gallery, and didn't want to just make one pair and forget them gain, so I've been playing around with various designs. Much to my great frustration, I'm finding that I have a lot to re-teach myself about successfully throwing this seemingly simple form. First one was great, then I had to start thinking about it, and it's been a very colorful exploration over the past few days, with a growing pile of clay for reclaim and barely a shelf full of actual forms. Perhaps I need to go back and read what Julia and the pugger have taught me ...

playing around with the candlestick...
heather gave me great ideas with her versions (in the back)

Today has been better, in large part thanks to pal Heather who came by the studio (with lunch, no less!) and listened to me rant and watched me throw and even threw a couple of sticks herself. No huge 'aha!' moments, but just the nice, calming effect of a supportive friend collaborating on a challenge. I'll probably continue to add to the reclaim pile, but I think the technical aspects are taking care of themselves and I can go back to thinking less about it and just doing it!

and over in the 'random' wing ... this little key just popped off my keyboard...
...the (mac) universe telling me I should question more ... try a different slant to my views ...
...and more will be added to my life...

Results from the recent kiln...

Unloaded both the reduction kiln and a mid-range kiln this week, and had some good tests, some great tests, some continuing frustrations, some pleasant surprises, and still some that just make you go 'hmmmm....'.

And then there was also the sagger test:

The nekkid cup on top of the sagger. Actually there's a honey celadon liner inside, you can see a bit of it on the rim.

The 'after' upon opening. The overhead lights and unfortunate flash kind of blur the interior, but the honey celadon looked good...

The wadding got a little to flattened out, and some of the salt oozed up onto the foot. Unfortunately, I broke the cup when trying to grind off the excess, but it was still a good test overall. The clay body was the Laguna B-Mix w/helmar, and the earlier tea bowls were zelastone. As I do the shot cups, they may be a variety of clays, and some will be glazed in saggers, others will have their own little thimbles of salt.

Other things in the reduction kiln:

A new way to play with shino - ribbed slip on the pot, then my regular shino layers with the underglaze brush work between. I'm working on a series of smaller vases to play more with this...

Another covered jar, part studio demo, part me playing with a carved facet I haven't done in a while, but I love what this copper glaze does on it. The lid is a hollow form with bits of clay inside. Why does this lid need to be a rattle? Well why not! Actually, this is a demo of a pet urn I've made before, I just needed pictures.

A bit of a side-track. I've been working with a copper green glaze in our oxidation firings. I'm not trying to replicate or replace the reduction 'crazy green', but I did want to get one for mid-range that made me happy. This cup came out of the recent cone 7 ox kiln:

it's become a very popular glaze for the members...

a new mug form I'm doing for the Sparrow Spa, that I quite like. I've been wanting to do the 'dancing brush' design on other forms, and this was one of the pleasant tests.

Another in the series of unending tests to get that gold shino back. This is still a bit more orange than the original firings, but it's closer.

I'm not posting the ChoLo mugs - they were both a frustration and ones that made me go 'hmmmm....', but I'm going to try something else and I'll hold off on that little series of trials and errors (mostly errors lately!) until the next firing.

Another result from the cone 7 kiln - this is studio member Matt's sweet tea bowl. He's layered glazes with a black underglaze, and got a nice result...

...I'm tempted to post pictures of Scott's cups, as he hasn't made it into the studio in far too long, but I'll just leave this mention of them as a teaser to get him in here to see for himself (then I'll put pictures up later!). :)

Back to the wheel - saw the wonderful opening at Clingman last night - it looks great, get down there and get something before the red dots completely take over! The show is great, but it also showed me there are a lot more shelves than I remembered, so I better get more stuff into the next kiln! peace.