There are always surprises when I open the kiln, particularly when there are new glazes or new forms or new combinations of glazes in there. That happens a lot. I don't do anything consistently, which is either a virtue or a vice, depending ...
Fortunately, I like surprises. That's why I like wood-firing, though I don't do it often enough. And that's why I use Shino glazes and combinations of Shino glazes in most firings in my own gas-fueled kiln. This time, the three overlapping Shino glazes on the many square hand-dug brown stoneware cups and vases and the dug-out teabowls worked out pretty well. I used Bright Shino as a base, pouring a Malcolm Davis carbon-trap and a Davis orange Shino over the base. On some of them I poured the Phil Rogers ash celadon I use as a liner. The ash sometimes does nice things over Shino.
There was a fair amount of crackle slip in this firing, which works well under the ash celadon and under the blue ash recipe adapted from blogging potter Brandon Phillips. (Thanks, Brandon.) This blue might still be a bit strong for my tastes, but cobalt is a strong colorant and I mixed a smallish batch, so I might have had a bit more cobalt than the .10 percent called for in Brandon's recipe.
The two faceted vases and the creamer between them are glazed with a basic ash glaze that is four parts Antarctic sea mud and five parts wood ash. That recipe produces a glossy amberish glaze with nice running and pooling qualities on the B-Mix white clay body and with crystally brown/amber qualities on brown stoneware.
All in all, not a bad firing.
9 comments:
the crackle slip has become one of my new obsessions, i dig it on your pots. i found that to get a really accurate measurement of cobalt i had to mix a 10,000g batch. so then i could accurately measure out the 10 grams needed. my scale isn't too accurate below a few grams. though it claims to be accurate to 1/10th of a gram i disproved that claim long ago.
I'm not too fond of the blue but the shinos are yummy! that's my kind of glaze, also like the amber ash a lot. I'd be happy with that firing, so fun to see the pictures. I saw a vase a friend of mine fired as a test glaze today. Tenmoku and then the nuka glaze from John Britt's book dipped over the tenmoku. Really nice. It comes out sort of grainy whitish blue, if that's understandable! She also had a teapot with shino on first and then an ash glaze on top of that. Fabulous look. I'm waiting on recipes.....
Thanks, you two. I'm sure my scale isn't as accurate as it ought to be down to the level I mixed this batch at. This was basically one gram. And did you mean you want recipes from me, Tracey? Happy to pass them along, if you do.
Really very different results, some very nice. I love the celadon and shinos glazes.
I meant my friend was sending me some ash recipes but I'll take all that come my way! I'm starting to test some rutile blue glazes from John Britt's book to go with the orange shinos we have at Claymakers. I don't have a lot of shino glazes. The recipes I have that I like are Malcom's shino, choy blue celedon, amber celedon and ohata khaki(persimmon). I'm looking for a nice chun recipe and a good shino that's better than the ones we have at CM. The ones we have don't have much life to them. I see much testing in my future!
totally cool pots, particularly the middle short vase and the two creamers... i like the chatter on the one and the handles on both, great diversity of glaze results
Thanks, all. It was a good firing. Tracey, I'll put together some recipes for you and e-mail them. If you see one you are particularly interested in, just let me know and I'll send it to you. Most of these are, I think, pretty publicly available glazes.
And the chatter on the one creamer comes from a roller made with the interior cylindrical blade of a common pencil sharpener. Something I learned from Phil Rogers.
Hi Hollis, this firing looks fantastic, I love all the colours and the ash glazes are just great. I think all the colours wonderfull. what an exciting kiln full.
This was indeed a pretty good one, Paul. But I'm just trying to keep up with your firings.
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