My first pottery pics

Hi all,

So after a long week in a slowly cooling kiln, my sake bowls plus some others have emerged from the reduction firing beautifully. I'm really pleased with the celadon, a really wonderful glaze that a friend of mine mixed up from scratch, hand mixed glazes really are amazing things! I also used some chun (a lovely blue glaze), some matte white (which was off, can you say rotten eggs?) and some black iron oxide, and am pretty happy with the results. The chun is a lovely light, bright blue which I would definitely use again. I've heard some good things about chun being applied after a tenmoku (a dark "oilspot" glaze) coat so I may also give that a go.

Here are some pictures of some of the bowls that came out of the reduction firing:







The small bowl that I used chun on is probably my favourite, although it did warp in the kiln and is no longer circular. I think that it's very lucky that it did so that now I don't have to feel guilty over not trying to sell it! There is most certainly beauty in the imperfections. Speaking of imperfections, I also had some of my very first thrown bowls come out of an oxidation firing this week. The bowls themselves are certainly less than perfect but they served their purpose as a vessel on which I could explore surface. I've given them as a gift to my younger sister who loves both fish and bubbles.

The colours on these bowls have been acheived by underglaze. The bubble bowl's texture was created by painting shellac onto a "green" bowl (green meaning dry but unfired) in the bubble pattern. The shellac was then left to dry overnight. The next day I used a damp sponge to rub back the surface of the clay which caused the water-proof, shellaced areas to remain raised and also exposed the grog (the rough particles) of the clay. The clay that I used to throw this bowl was a recycled stoneware, so it was very groggy. The fish bowl was decorated by simply painting on a good few layers of underglaze and using a white slip to make the bubbles. Both bowls were then given a coat of clear glaze to seal them up.

It's been a hectic week for me, with mid semester reviews but now that they are over and done with I'm hoping to have the time to concentrate on getting some things made up to sell. So look out for more ceramics being listed in Inspiral Crafts over the coming weeks.

Well that's all from me for now, have a great week everyone and as always, don't for get to check out the store and the facebook page.

Cheers
Rachael