Well, this year started off with a bang, but a couple of minor setbacks have me running behind on getting my first load fired and ready to sell. First, I had the flu. That put me down for two full weeks and three weekends in January. Next, is the weather. It has been snowing like MAD. We’ve been getting about one storm per week for several weeks now. I had to dig out around the kiln house so we could get the propane bottle refilled. That is finally done, and the kiln is accessible. I am working on putting color onto the last of the mugs. I plan to load the kiln tomorrow, candle overnight, and fire it on Sunday. This will be a bisque firing; next will be to do the glaze firing two weekends from now.

I have been doing a lot of color on striped mugs and espresso cups, and water design “eddy line” plates. I did some plates with Duncan underglazes, and others with stained slips. I’m excited to see which technique comes out best.

Here’s a picture of the kiln house and the path I shoveled. Hard to tell from the picture, but the snow is about two feet deep:

A few pictures from the last firing of the year:

A cup and saucer:

The same saucer, detailed photos:

Colorful striped mug:

All of these pieces are cone 5 B-Mix with Duncan underglazes and Laguna WC-520 transparent glaze.

Pictures from the firing on 10-6-07.

The technical stuff: All pieces were made from Laguna ^5 b-mix, bisque fired to ^04. The colored frog was painted with engobe in the greenware stage, then glazed with a clear glaze for the final ^6 firing. The other frog was simply glazed with a celadon glaze. I wanted to compare the outcome of a decorated frog vs. a simple glazed frog. I like both, but I like the decorated frog more.

Dare I forget to mention the bowl? Not. It is glazed in layers using Georgie’s Incredible Black on the bottom, and Georgie’s Nassau Blue on the top. I made a set of four of these. Very pleased with the results.

I fired the kiln last weekend. Much of the work was ruined due to being overfired. The colors and glaze held up OK, but the clay body itself experienced extreme bubbling - I think it was starting to melt. If I had continued to increase the heat, everything may have turned into blobs. This should have been a cone 5 firing, but the bottom part of the kiln got to about cone 8 and none of the work from that part of the kiln was salvagable. Luckily, it did not get as hot in the top, and most pieces survived. This was purely a negligent mistake and in the future I will be vigilant about checking the kiln at close intervals near the end of the firing.

I have been making small bowls that can be used for eating sushi or holding measured spices while cooking, or holding a teabag after it has finished steeping… there are many uses for these tiny dishes. I put a quarter in the first picture to give you an idea of the size.

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These bowls are the same diameter but are about twice as deep as the previous ones:

This plate is about six inches in diameter:

The vase is about six inches tall:

The technical stuff:

All pieces but the vase are made with Laguna ^5 B-Mix clay. The dot work was done with colored slips. I make the slip out of the same clay body and color it with 5-10% Mason stains, and apply with slip trailing bottles and brushes. Slips are applied at the greenware stage and a transparent glaze is applied at the bisque stage.

The vase is slab-built from Laguna WS-5 clay and glazed with Georgie’s glazes. The small bowls in the first picture were made from B-Mix and glazed with the same glazes as the vase.

That’s all, folks. Thanks for looking.

Here’s my kiln. It’s an Olympic Torchbearer 2327G, propane fired cone 10 kiln. It has a capacity of 7 cubic feet - I can fit quite a bit of stuff in there. I bought it early in 2006.It is very powerful and I haven’t had the burners nearly open yet. All of my current work is bisqued to ^04 and fired to ^6. Paul built the awesome kiln house. The middle section of the roof comes off during firings.