There’s always more to learn when you toy with atmospheric firing. People ask how it went and the answer is ‘well 80%’, often. That’s good. Overall the colours looked encouraging when we opened the kiln door but my batch seems rather brown. I shall refer to my notes and make suggestions to myself to try a different flashing slip, or apply less etc. Every time I warn myself not to expect uniform orange peel all around a pot in a soda firing. These pots show the results you can expect but I still hope for more colours and less contrast around each piece.
This spherical jar with a lid did turn out very nicely. The lid fits and I can live with the dark melty side and the brighter red side. It is lined with warm orange shino glaze.
Maybe Seth Rogen would call it a stash jar!
Below are two more of my signature jugbirds, both looking rather too brown in my opinion..
Here are two useful pots, a small pouring bowl, enhanced with grooves and a practical, non-bird jug. I do enjoy carving those grooves!
Three different mugs. l to r. this mug has the blue I like, with green from a spray of titanium dioxide, the middle one was sprayed with blue slip for soda but didn’t get in the last firing so I fired it in the guild’s gas kiln with a coat of celadon. Still not happy I fired it in this kiln and I love the colours now. The big one has a splash of Tesha glaze on each side. Glaze on the outsides in soda is worth exploring.
This little square dish lined with copper red glaze turned out nicely. I love the wiggle-wired underside!
I made bird designs with sgraffito on the vase below, filling the lines with black underglaze after bisque. The lidded jar is red inside.
I must be honest.. I left the bowl uncovered after I’d thoroughly enjoyed carving it. There is no way to fix the crack that developed in the base. Others said the teapot is fine as is, not me. I’ll have it re-fired next time.
Finally, the spherical bowls below were an experiment, fired stacked. Fun to try but they didn’t stay round.
Back to the wheel. I have lots of ideas to try in the May firing.
Lovely stuff as usual. Did you start your pottery in the nissen huts at Croft? I never got further than making ashtrays because my pots always collapsed. I was always put off by having to wash my hands in cold water and getting clay under my nails! What a wuss!!
No Liz. I saw wheels in two schools and wanted to try out throwing, but didn’t get the chance to take a pottery course until college in London, in 1962. Do you remember the interlude on BBC TV showing a potter at work on a wheel?