Monday, February 23, 2009

Journey Workshop - Feb 15 - 22

There was a Guild gas firing while I was away in Florida and so came back to some fired pots. The firing was not very good - somehow there was no copper red and the shinos on some tiles turned out totally white just as in oxidation, though other glazes seemed OK.
I did get one reasonable pot out of the 10 or so pots that I had in the firing - a large porcelain platter with stamped fish.




The blue/ green area may be a bit strong, but still not too bad. It would have been nice to have blue ash rivulets in that area instead of a solid wall of blue green. Water Blue is very fluid and a little goes a long way.
I used Steven's suggestion of using water blue on the stamped area, rubbing it off and then glazing over with the stony yellow - this accentuated the stamps very nicely. I was a bit worried about using a very fluid glaze under a stiff one as I might get bubbles but it worked beautifully. Thanks Steven!






At tall "Parade" vase finally made it into the refire - turned out better glaze wise, as the blue and green areas turned out less black after reglazing. However the whole form is not very good too narrow if you look sideways and the top window cutouts look weak. I must remember not to focus so much on the decoration, but on the form as well.
I may try another one - with a better tree and the windows integrated better.




I also finished another mirror - this time using the fish hair - but it may have ended up too complicated. I again dried it very slowly and this time used a heavy bat on the mirror frame as that is where I got some warping last time in the firing.

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