I may have a mild obsession with taking hot kiln pictures.

Molten kiln wall.

I think this is the best bending-cones picture I’ve gotten: c.8 down, c.9 soft.

It went well! The difference between a “dirty” and regular firing: super heavy reduction, extra carbon trapping (going for grey to charcoal porcelain), and extra soda. It’s excellent. I had a lot of work - nearly half the kiln - so this is truly the highlights reel. (And I haven’t even shown you the pods.)

The surfaces of this vessel are particularly fantastic. Went in with an unglazed exterior (and plenty of copper glaze on the inside), came out like this. Purple to yellowish, matte to glossy. Grolleg porcelain. Amazing, no?

The bathtubs turned out as hilariously as I thought they would. They’re soap dishes.

Set of houses. Iron stoneware washed with chromium oxide, and came out wonderfully. Must do that again.

This little dish got a big drip of silicone carbide in it, which made a lovely accent.

The newer short cup form. The surfaces came out so well. The heavy reduction really pulls the iron through.

This is the first of probably many posts dealing with my experiments. This series began because I had been reading about some ceramic materials and wondered what would happen if … so I experimented with some little pieces I had on hand. Temoku glaze tends to be stable and predictable, and is one of my staples. Side note - most of these happened to go through one of Jayson Lawfer’s firings for heavy reduction firing and reduction cooling. Here are my results.

Sauce dish and tiny dish. 2008. Handbuilt of Tile6 over stoneware FCSI with incised drawing. Whiting sprinkled over temoku glaze. Soda fired to c.10. 1h, 2.5w; 1h, 3.5w.

Macro shot. Whiting serves as a flux in glazes, so it seemed like a good pick. The whiting came out very dry but can be brushed away with water, leaving a dry pitted surface and some very opaque glaze. I may be able to modify this, mix whiting with water and brush it on rather than sprinkling, but this experiment didn’t knock my socks off, so I’m letting it go for now.

Three sauce dishes. 2008. Handbuilt of Tile6 over stoneware FCSI with incised drawing. Frit3134 sprinkled over temoku glaze. Soda fired to c.10. 1h, 3.5w; 1h, 3.5w; 2h, 3.5w.

Macro shot. Another ceramic artist told me Ferro Frit 3134 is nice to work with. I knew it would melt, but didn’t know how it’d look. I used varying amounts of frit; while a little bit does the job, a lot isn’t too much. The frit melted and ran down, making a puddle that resembles an oil slick. This has potential, especially if there are places for glaze to pool.

Three sauce dishes. 2008. Handbuilt of Tile6 over stoneware FCSI with incised drawing. Bone ash sprinkled over temoku glaze. Soda fired to c.10. 2h, 2.5w, 3.5l; 1h, 3.5w; 1h, 3.5w.

Macro shot. I don’t remember why I thought this would be a good idea, and I had no idea what would happen. This piece had the least sprinkled on. The bone ash wasn’t all absorbed into the glaze, it showed a lot of potential. I love the crusty surface, and it appeared to be very stable when hit with soda. I’ve applied it on four pieces since then with success on three - the fourth is in the kiln and cooling as I type. Look for an update soon.

Two bowls and a sauce dish. 2008. Handbuilt of Tile6 over stoneware FCSI with incised drawing. Bone ash sprinkled over temoku glaze. Soda fired to c.10. 2h, 4.5w, 4l; 2h, 3.5w; 1h, 3.5w.

Individual shot. Granular nickel has the ability to form crystals. What couldn’t be cool about that? So I sprinkled some on (I tried to sprinkle on wet glaze, but sometimes had to spray the glaze with water to get my materials to stick). A little goes a long way; too much gives a crusty metallic surface. That might be good for sculpture but the same effect can probably be gotten with glaze, too.

Macro shot. Where it was applied lightly, I did get some neat little crystal formations. I don’t know how I’ll use it, but this is pretty cool.

Three sauce dishes. 2008. Handbuilt of Tile6 over stoneware FCSI with incised drawing. Titanium dioxide sprinkled over temoku glaze. Soda fired to c.10. 1.5h, 3.5w, 4l; 1h, 3.5w; 1h, 3.5w.

Macro shot. Titanium dioxide is the primary component of rutile, which has been a favorite colorant for years - an obvious choice for this experiment. The crystals don’t surprise me and is something I’ve seen before with my Woo Blu slowly cooled. Some of the powder sprinkled on in fine clumps; they melted but didn’t really move. Most of the surface was smooth and glossy; the titanium in combination with iron in the temoku yielded a golden color, deepened by reduction, but creamy in some places. As with the bone ash, the thickness of application seemed to be an easily solved problem. For my next applications I mixed some titanium dioxide with water and brushed it onto the rim of a tall vessel and into huge bowl.

Three sauce dishes. 2008. Handbuilt of Tile6 over stoneware FCSI with incised drawing. Soda ash sprinkled over temoku glaze. Soda fired to c.10. 1.5h, 3.5w.

Macro shot. I know soda ash is a flux - we use it in the kiln! Applying it directly to a glaze ensures that it goes where I want it. The pool at the bottom does get a greenish tinge to it.

Three sauce dishes. 2008. Handbuilt of Helmar slip over porcelainous stoneware with incised drawing. Granulated nickel brushed over temoku glaze. Soda fired to c.10. 1.5h, 3.5w, 4l; 1h, 3.5w; 1h, 3.5w.

Individual shot. Because the nickel had potential last time, I mixed some with water and brushed swirls onto more pieces. It turned out well.

Macro shot. The gold flecking is from soda hitting the piece. Very nice.

Backside of the above. Really pretty inky black.

Macro shot. This is nice too.

After the winter hiatus, the soda kiln is firing again. Some photos for the curious, and a fun test for my camera:

Kiln room, from the front of the kiln. Hood overhead, shelves to the right, kiln ahead. Lit by flame and heat. Kiln light makes for some dramatic monochromatic shots.

Arch of the door; the silhouettes are so figural.

The insulating ability of soft brick is another thing that amazes me. You can see my gloved thumb at the left and of course the 2300 degree end at the right. The end I’m holding is warm, but not too hot to touch. As always, be appropriately cautious where heat and fire are involved. At the very least, the glove keeps arm hair from being singed.

I’m impressed that my camera got this picture. Digital editing adds clarity. You can see cone 9 down and cone 10 falling in the foreground, a little darker than what’s behind them, and of course glowing work in the background.

This equipment does the heavy lifting: back side of the kiln as firing is reaching completion. The body of the kiln is off the left of the frame; the lit brick surface is actually the chimney. Round thing is the blower; gas is the vertical line into the blower output. The gas/air mix tees behind the kiln and splits to both burners, one of which is visible in the frame.

End of the firing, cone 10 flat on the bottom. Infrared isn’t particularly good for your eyes, so we wear filtering goggles to look into the kiln. Through computer-screen intervention, this is safe to look at.

I’ve had to change ingredients for one of my favorite glazes. The recipe’s been around for years, and I’d been using the minority one that called for G-200 feldspar. Custer spar is the typical ingredient and a typical subtitute, and looks fine so far. There are other variations among batches, though. I’ve used dark rutile and light rutile, and there are several varieties of iron oxide in the glaze kitchen. They’re all pretty and fit well; the rest is personal preference.

Woo Blue (I truncate it for fun) has a wide range of color and looks great in the soda kiln, and not bad in c.10 reduction. Here are some macro shots of surfaces. All these were fired in the soda kiln. Be aware that although all these effects are visible by the unaided eye, the image on your monitor may be quite a bit bigger than real life!

Two bowls, about 6 and 8 inches across.

Three whiskey cups, each about 1.5″ across.

Three pinch bowls, each about 2.5″ across (perfect size for a teabag, bit of soy sauce, or to grind pepper into).

Buildup of rutile above the field of glaze. Inside edge of tumbler, image 1-1.5″ across.

Outside of a tumbler, the dark blue’s nice. Image about 1.5″ across.

Edge of a whiskey cup; this reminds me of a starfield being so dark. Image about 1″ across.

I like the little rivulets of glaze. Inside of a whiskey cup, image about 1.5″ across.

Like barnacles. Inside of a bowl. I’m guessing the image is 1-1.5″ across

Waterfall effect, image probably 2″ across.

An astonishing and really lovely effect is crystal formation. This is usually done deliberately and during cooling from much lower temperatures; I’ll have to do some reading and pondering to guess how it happened here. A couple of different bowls have these. This image is 2-2.5″ across.

This area is 1.5-2″ across.

Closeup of above, about 1/3 from the left horizontally, vertically about center. I’m glad to have gotten this shot in focus. Image is, I believe, under .5″ across.

This really shows off the abilities of my digital camera, as well. It’s the pocket-sized Panasonic Lumix.

Note on 13 Dec 07: I didn’t consider this earlier, but I may have removed some of the soluables from my most recent batch of glaze. As I sometimes do, i made the glaze with more water than necessary, and skimmed quite a bit off. Further consideration of the glaze chemistry will answer this. I am, however, quite pleased with my results.

Note 2 on 13 Dec 07: Dark and light rutile are calcined and uncalcined. Again, further study needed, but it does make a difference.

Note 3 13 Dec 07 - the waterfall and rivulets, when more extensive, are commonly known as hare’s fur.

It’s back, and it looks good, really good. Since my few shots at the studio don’t sing, here’s one I took as I loaded the boxes into my car; as the sunlight was perfect. There will be more shot at home, later:

Those are a pair of whiskey cups in stoneware with iron, with extra silica. They’re on top of some with the #119 clay, and inside of a porcelain vase. The glaze on all is a copper blue.

My notes: Stuff looks fantastic - I can’t wait to do it again! The house from on the bag wall looks excellent, and I like the look of that #119 clay was suggested to me… nice and warm color. I think I prefer less iron in my clay for wood/salt; the iron seemed to come out more strongly compared to soda. The added silica was a nice look too. I used a lot of the Tile 6 slip (I think it’s got a bunch of neph sy in it too) on the little cups and that looked good. It was a surprise (but perhaps shouldn’t have been) that the round vase fired on its side came out… less round. Should try that again too.

Just over a week ago, I attended a workshop with Meredith Brickell. She showed us many of the techniques that she uses in working with wet clay, talked about her thoughts toward working in clay, some of her surface decoration, glazing, and firing methods, and shared some recipes. The pace of the workshop was pleasantly fast.

I learned some really neat little tricks and a bunch of bigger techniques. I’m looking forward to making myself some bowl molds - my very own.

Meredith introduced the (to me) radical notion that wet clay could be used as a mold. We used pieces of old sheets and pillowcases like slings to move slabs of clay around, and to keep the wet mold and wet slab from sticking together. After making and draping this hump mold, I learned that she’s always done slump (concave) molds. Over the next few days, I added coils and used pinching and my serrated rib to create this:

I must say, I’ve never made anything like it, but I like where it’s going.