A little last-minute glaze spraying… just some tenmoku fun
before loading my soda kiln tonight!!!

Just in time for the NORTHERN ILLINOIS POTTERY TOUR… a new glaze combination I’ve been playing around with!!! A drippy runny mess of color playing nicely with my stamped textures. Frequently, glaze tends to fill in all of my stamps. But this time, it’s dripping, running & making cool rivulets of color. Even the undersides have been turning out pretty groovy! We’ll see if people dig ‘em as much as I do?!

Big debut this weekend at the NORTHERN ILLINOIS POTTERY TOUR! C’mon by…

Last night in my SURFACE DECORATION class, I challenged my students to several fun glazing tasks. No one “really” likes glazing… so my goal was to make it more fun by trying new things on cylinders that I made ahead of time for them! So they wouldn’t be “sacrificing “ their own pieces… giving them no emotional attachment to the piece… allowing them to have some fun while glazing! Can’t wait to see their results!!!! More to come …

A new platter with a new glaze! Fresh out of the kiln… and I’m LOVING this glaze as it seems to highlight all of the stamped textures & grooved areas so sweetly. Mental note to self… must make more like this!!!

A fun new textured platter with a swirling textured surface. Love how the chattered-slip pattern works so well with the “watery” feeling of the new glaze… pooling & puddling in all the right places!

Some fun new stamped & glaze colored mugs for this weekend’s HOLIDAY HOME SHOW! Still looking for some new “names” to call each glaze color?! I think I’ve settled on “aubergine” for the purple one. I’ve jokingly been saying if we call it “purple” it’s one price, but if we call it “aubergine’ with a pompous verbal flair then it costs twice as much!!!

Color name suggestions anyone???

Looks like Cory McCrory is in the final stages here… with some clear glaze in all the right places! Yes, that mint green color is actually a low-fire CLEAR glaze! So it will make all of Cory’s underglaze colors a lot more vibrant. And it will make the terra cotta areas darker & shinier than the “raw” terra cotta areas. Can’t believe ART IN THE GARDEN is this weekend already… but it is good to know that these are already in the final kiln firing. So I think Cory has timed it perfect… although they might just be “a little warm” when they come out of the kiln just in time for this weekend’s art fair!

Okay, so here’s the “weird clay & glaze issues” story!
So I made this year’s Shamrock Mugs with a new kind of clay… fresh from the manufacturer. No problems with it. So I glazed the bisqued mugs in a couple different shades of green glaze… that I have used many many times. The dark green glaze on the left came out perfect. The light green glaze on the right came out a bubbly, pock-marked & scratchy?! In the same kiln with the same light green glaze… I also fired some bowls made with a different clay body and they came out perfectly light green! So I’m thinking there’s got to be something about the new clay & this one glaze recipe “not playing well with each other”? Ugh… the glamorous life of a Potter?!

So… I did some strategic sanding & smoothing, and then sprayed a light layer of the darker green glaze that “worked so well” over it. Figured it would either help melt & seal it all together… or they would be ruined even more. I had nothing to lose.

Well, they came out of the kiln today… a little “mottled” looking and not quite shiny-smooth. But they are SO MUCH BETTER than the scatchy un-sellable ones I had before.

So… some of these “seconds” will be in the SHAMROCK MUG SALE tonight… clearly identified & with a good discount!!! Sale starts in just under two hours at 8:00pm central… only on my Facebook page!

www.facebook.com/firewhenreadypottery

Glazing & loading… time to add another shelf and LOT more trees!
This is just the glaze first kiln… I think I might try to squeeze in two more glaze kilns
before next weekend! Dare to dream…

Doing a little glaze inlay into the stamped impressions. I like to fill the stampings with a dark tenmoku glaze so the pattern stands out a bit more after the soda-firing!