Another great soda firing!

It's been a busy few weeks around here and as the solstice quickly approaches I realize I have not been keeping up with this blog. Oh, I've written a few in my head...lol. I thought I might get back into the swing of things by showing the last loading and unloading of the soda kiln.

I was anxious to get these big bottles into the kiln.

Loading large pieces like this was a first for me. Just figuring out the logistics of stacking was tricky. I decided to put them in the middle with one layer of ware under them.

The front stack went up as normal with some really great tiny ware on the bag wall...that's the wall that buffers the flame from hitting the pottery directly. Here is the front stack ready for action.

Here is a shot of the top of the bag wall.

The back stack was similar and as you can see the bottles were nestled between these two stacks.

The firing went way longer than I had expected as I was having issues with the burners. I finished up at 2 am after a 14 hour firing.....I was tired! But I had the good company of Mike from Vessels of Intention keeping me company until the very end! Thank you Mike!!!

We unstacked the kiln the next day and the results were excellent! 

I hope to get dome individual pictures of some of these pieces. 

Here is a shot of the same bag wall......I just love what this kiln does.

A small vase.

Here is the large bottle I have been working on for the last month. I'm in love!

Math is your friend.

I loaded up the bisque kiln yesterday and found that my calculations for dry shrinkage on the large bottle were accurate.

Very accurate. 

Supersturctures

Here is the first of a series of large bottles. They are destined for the soda kiln and 'should' fit into the bisque kiln. Here is how it is built:

I rolled my clay at about 3/8", cleaned off the face, and draped it over my wooden mold.

After using the heat gun to stiffen up the clay a bit I flipped it over. Here you can see the plywood mold. This one is scaled up from the tall bottle in my previous post but you can cut these at any dimension. You want to make three of these clay slabs and let them sit for a couple of hours before you try to put it all together.

Now comes the tricky part......assembly. You may want help holding them up so you can get a good bead of clay on the inside seem or you can get handy with whatever is around and prop the sucker up as I have done.

Once all three sides are together the piece is very stable and you can really work those seems. 

If the piece is going to crack this is where it is going to happen, so compress the crap out of it! I spend about ten to fifteen minutes compressing each of these seems. This also gives me time to give it a crisp and sharp edge, which really adds to the look of the piece.

Did I mention slip and score everything really well? 

Cut out a triangle piece for the bottom and apply. I use a pony roller to compress the foot and get a nice clean looking foot.

Before I flip the piece over it is good to go over each of these seems again and get them  as good as you can down near the foot.

The top is similar to the bottom but as you can see there is no definition between the walls and the top. Time to get out your soft rubber rib and compress again.

The neck is really important. The diameter, the length, and it's relationship to the bottle itself really give your pot it's final character. 

I added this final piece to the top but it could go either way.

Final height is 29 inches......bisque kiln is 27 inches. It'll fit! I used one bag of Laguna Bmix on this project. After it dries I will bring it to the spray booth and apply a colored flashing slip.

Colored slips

More bottles. Playing with underglazes and the banding wheel. When they come out of the kiln I will be using iron oxide in the spray booth and my Bone glaze which is semi opaque so the colors will not be this bright. No matter the medium; painting, textiles, clay. I've always worked this way. Bright colors masked with dingy layers to give it age and patina. I prefer second hand clothing as well.

This is my Streamline cup. It comes from a one piece mold and is cast usually in porcelain. I'll cast it in recycled clay too but sometimes the rim warps a bit. Again, colored slips. I make all my own slips using a ∆6 vitreous underglaze recipe and then adding about 20% colorant. I am also experimenting with Bauer flashing slip with 20% colorants in the wood kiln and soda kiln. The colorants I use are for the most part Mason stains. For Black I use Black Iron Oxide.

Here is a break down of the quilted cup. The bottom, as shown in previous posts is a three part slip cast mold. The top is a hand built coil that is rolled out with a pony roller and then cut on the side that adjoins to the cup. That leaves the upper edge a 'live edge' or natural edge. This gives each cup it's distinctive personality and size.

Here are a couple of new colors for the alphabet cups. The leathery one in the center is our Bone glaze with Pumpkin on top. The one with the blue ring is our Emerald glaze (Bone glaze with copper oxide) with Bright Sky Blue on top. 

Our Bone glaze is Ron Roys Bone High Calcium Semi Matte base with 5% Titanium and 1% Rutile. For those who do not know who Ron Roy is check out his book Mastering Cone 6 Glazes. Bright Sky Blue recipes are all over the net. 

Naked Raku workshop. Part 1

Yesterday we had a Raku workshop at the studio. Here are the demo pots I made on Sunday. Both are made by slumping clay on wooden cutout templates and putting together the parts. We will be firing them in two weeks with  process called Naked Raku. I'll post more about this tomorrow.

This is Mari throwing raku clay on the wheel. Today is her Birthday! Happy Birthday Mari! 

And this is her cute dog Raffi. He's our studio dog.

Hand building, although a slow process, gives us the ability to build complex forms that you could not make on the wheel. It also offers the opportunity for someone to come into the studio with no clay experience and build something very comparable to what I would build. 

Although it is not for everyone. Some folks are drawn to the wheel like a moth to a light bulb. As I was drawn years ago. The wheel is what got me hooked on clay. I threw for about six or seven years before I ever considered hand building. 

Hand building is often relegated to kids work. True it is easier for them to do as the wheel takes a great understanding of the 'center'. But when mastered hand building shows subtleties that the wheel could never capture.

Both have a place in my studio.

My son made a cupcake. I believe it is gluten free.

700 ml. sealable ceramic bottle

I finally have a sealable bottle! Ha! This project has taken so many hours of brainstorming and effort. It feels really good to finally have a working prototype. It opens and closes nicely. I have given it to both men and women of several different ages and it seems to perform nicely! It holds 700 ml. and adds to the line of very functional kitchen wares for food storage.

Here is a raw clay piece from the mold before I made the last bit of modification. Turned out the width of the lower neck piece was too wide to accommodate the lid in the closed position. So I may rework the mold a bit. But until then it just needs a small addition to the neck (perfect place for a bit of texture!

I finished the shelving in the tower. It is now stained a dark brown. I need to touch up the walls here and there to get it ready for stocking! We open Easter weekend.

I also got out a set of plates yesterday and the results were stunning! Again, this project took soooo many hours but the results were worth it. I will be doing these with the rim in several different colors, blue, green, the turquoise pictured, and maybe grey.

Close-up. 

I love the speckling from the iron oxide! Large plate weighs in at 695 grams which is comparable to a Macy's plate I purchased many years ago. I still need to make a small modification to the little plate.

Sunday, the day of rest.

It's Sunday, the day of rest. Ha, right. Really it's a day to get some house cleaning done, inside if it's rainy and outside if it's dry. I also might mention I have two young "helpers" Noah and Sebastian. Noah is 4.978 years old and Sebastian is 4 months old. Mom will be working today so I will spend my weekend days trying to get things done and being realistic about how much you can get done with two little ones in tow. I have much compassion for the single mom.
The photographer that came by the other day, Adam Nash finished the photo documentary that he did the other day. It was wonderful and scary all at the same time. But I have to say he really showed things as they really are, not very glamorous and messy looking. It seemed like his lens had found every little detail I had forgotten to notice. It gave me a new perspective on the studio.
I thought I might share his post on this somewhat dreary day while I slog through another day with the boys watching them grow up one diaper at a time or one temper tantrum at a time.

http://www.adamnash.us/lopez-potter/

Here is a slip cast 750 ml. bottle I am working on that has a hermetically sealable opening. It is setup to handle an ez-cap. Lets hope it all works when it's finished!