Kiln Opening!

I did a glaze firing last night with a couple of new glazes: the bright blue and the emerald green. You've already seen the emerald green, but I've mixed a large batch of it now and I'm having consistently great results. I think it's my new favorite: it looks great in the teapot and the casserole dish!

I had done a small test with the blue and originally thought that it was too blue, but I think I'm liking it more now that I mixed a large batch of it. It's a shiny, deep, deep blue that I think is going to go over well.

I have a feeling that these two new glazes are going to end up replacing the blue and green Pharsalia glazes, which are a bit more tricky. For example, the Pharsalia blue on the rim of the casserole sometimes comes out with brown splotches or speckles. These can be very nice, but other times... not so much. In this case, the brown is concentrated on the casserole's feet so that it looks two-tone...

Another experiment in this batch is the two small boxes in the bottom shelf: one blue and the other green. This is not a "new" idea, but a return to an old one. I use an oxide wash to stain the bisque making sure that the texture is highlighted, and then I dip the piece in a clear glaze. Here, I used cobalt carb for the blue box and copper carb for the green one. The pieces are white on the inside.

I painted some leaves on the soup bowls. I'm still having a bit of trouble with the green color burning out, but there's a bit more green in these than in past experiments. I think I'll just have to paint it on thicker.

And finally, my brother is getting married in a couple of months and I was thinking of making a set of dishes. I can't decide exactly how to glaze them and did this trial run using the Randy's Red and Pharsalia Green glazes. I'm liking that combination a lot!