All loaded last night… a LOT of pots fit in this time! Feeling pretty good as I got everything loaded…. except for about five mugs that didn’t quite fit! Can’t wait to see how these pots “magically” transform during the soda-firing!

Lots of pots last night on my studio rolling cart… all glazed & wadded. Ready to start loading… looks like it might be a late night?! GIDDY-UP!

Last night… after a FULL day of glazing & wadding… I finally got around to loading the soda kiln. It’s a little daunting when you come down and see this empty box of bricks staring down at you! Knowing that you need to carefully stack pots & shelves & bricks… trying to maximize your spacing, squeeze as many pieces as you can into the kiln, while trying to keep some good air spacing throughout for good flow of the soda atmosphere during the firing. Kinda like “Pottery Tetris’!!!

Last night was the first class with my SURFACE DECORATION students. We decided to “ease into it” with some surface basics… making nice pots & then playing with some thick white slip to create fun textures & patterns. Looking forward to revisiting these later to “play” with some glaze combos to accentuate the groovy textures.

Like glazing wasn’t “fun” enough already… ugh… I also need to add little balls of wadding to the bottom of every pot being loaded into the soda kiln. Wadding is basically a soda-resistant clay that will help keep my pots from sticking to the kiln shelves after the soda-atmosphere adds a layer of glaze on everything!

A little early morning glazing! Flower pots now with a liner glaze & inlaid glaze in the stamps… both with my favorite tenmoku.

Next up for these?… wadding!!!

This batch of stamped mugs now has inlaid glaze in all the stamped impressions.

Next up?… tenmoku liner glazing! I like to work in an “assembly line” kind of process.
Finish one step, then move onto the next.

Glaze on… glaze off. Busy putting tenmoku glaze into the stamped impressions on my mugs. I like how the dark inlaid glaze really makes the stamped textures show up so much better!

While I haven’t started my new “zinnia seed project” yet… my cousin Kim reminded me that it was also time to start my dahlia tubers indoors. Since I didn’t do a good job of digging out & saving the ones from last summer… I had to buy some new ones. So here are the three varieties I’m trying this time around. Can’t wait for them to start growing… can’t wait for warmer days… can’t wait for Summer Blooms!!!

Definitely feeling the Spring vibes here with some colored slip accents on my bisqued mugs. Getting ready start glazing these… inlaid glaze in the stamps & a tenmoku liner glaze. Then it’s off to the soda kiln this weekend where these colored slips will react & flash with the soda atmosphere during firing. The colors should become darker, richer & more saturated… if all goes as planned?!