Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Kiln Opening!

I had a nice firing of a brand new (to me!) glaze yesterday. It's the luscious yellow that you see in the pictures. I am so happy with it! I got the recipe from John Britt during a glaze workshop he did for The Clay Connection (in Alexandria, Virginia) last October. During the workshop, we tested the recipe in oxidation as well as reduction firings to Cone 6, and it looks equally wonderful in both.
  

Selsor Base

Gerstley Borate            12.5%
Whitting                       10.4%
Nepheline Syenite        56.3%
Silica                            20.8% 
                                    100.0%


Bentonite                         2%


For the yellow, add 5% rutile. We also tested a green version of the glaze during the workshop, which was with 3.5% copper carb.


And, as you can see from the picture... once again, I dropped a kiln post and broke a rally nice yarn bowl... Oh well!


Oh! And about the baby birds:
My intention was to follow the baby birds as they grew an left the nest, but I missed about a week when my grandson had to have his appendix out. By the time I got back to the studio, the baby birds were long gone (the fledge in 14 days!). I was so disappointed!

5 comments:

JAYNE SHATZ POTTERY said...

Thanks so much for your info on the glaze. your pieces look beautiful, too bad about the kiln prop! jayne shatz

KayzKreationz said...

Looks like you've got some beautiful pieces. Love that yellow. So sorry about the kiln post. And the baby birds. Hope your grandson is ok.

julie cavender said...

Looks like a nice load, except for the kiln post dropping :(

Anonymous said...

Beautiful:)

Darlene said...

Wow - nice yellow!
As for the kiln stilt, I had the same problem. Now I pull the shelf up an inch where each stilt is located to make sure they are loose - you can kind of shake it a little and usually tell. Or stick your fingers around the shelf if it is cool enough to feel for stilts sticking ;)
Happy potting!