I love teaching throwing classes! I love teaching in general but throwing classes are my favorite. Today we worked on bowls and plates. As some of you may know throwing a bowl is similar to throwing a cylinder but easier. With cylinders the outside hand is dominant and with bowls the inside hand. Since you are working against centrifugal force with cylinders it seems only natural that with bowls you are working with it. But that has its drawbacks too! A nice bowl can become a weird looking plate thing awfully quick.
The bread cloche has come out of the bisque and is ready for the glaze firing. I'm not going to add a glaze but I do want the clay to be fully vitrified. I fire the glaze kiln to cone 5 with a slow decent from 1900 to 1400 degrees fahrenheit. The slow cooling is for tomato red which needs to crystallize in order to turn red. I do not use any cadmium only iron. Iron will turn brown if you do not crystallize it and bring the viewable spectrum into the reds....does that make sense? Anyway it works.
I was also able to finish a honey jar today. I used a sprig mold I had made some time ago to decorate the piece. It's of Magnolia seed pods. I then blasted it with porcelain slip and will probably add some oxide.
The weather here was amazing today. It never ceases to amaze me how fast our weather can change. Sun, you rock!
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