Nearly there

This glaze experiment was based on an earlier one which showed potential. However, for this one using a taller vase, I made a lot of the top glaze so was able to thoroughly coat the vessel - this is the secret of successful glazing! Have plenty of glaze. I am very pleased with the result - the colours which I have not been able to capture with my camera successfully are gorgeous. The maker's hand is also revealed which is pleasing to me. The glaze has slid off the pot somewhat so I need to do further experimenting to minimize this. There are two firings involved - the first at a lower temp (1160) for the very dry glaze and decoration using white slip stripes as accents with my original peagreen painted over the stripes. The second is a full immersion of Colin's chrome which reacts with the undercoat when fired at 1180 to produce these lovely mossy shiny green effects.

Stopped bottles

An exercise in adding an extra something to more glaze experimentation - make different tops. These have become effectively 'stopped'; they are a bit bizarre but to me have a hint of the east about them. The HUGE moth is my interpretation of the Puriri moth, the largest moth in NZ. After bisquing comes the fun part, when I will attempt to bring all my glaze experimentation this year together, and hopefully get some interesting results. It may be also be back to the drawing board!

Raku bottle

The magic of raku and alchemy. Very suited to the impatient ceramicist!

Easter Saturday sunrise

New stripey pots

These two pots are an attempt to apply more thought to the stripe process. The top one was underfired at Cone 6 - I had put Seto yellow in dabs over my ASMI ochre but it didn't meld together. I had the opportunity to put it in a Cone 10 oxidation gas firing which did meld the two glazes but caused the stripes to drip and the barium blue thinner stripes faded.
The white pot is red clay with the same two glazes as in the first pot for the year. A bit of a problem with receding and advancing colours here as the finished result is the opposite of the raw glaze application. Such is ceramics!