Pots and Paintings

Thursday was a glaze firing day which caused me a bit of stress. I saw the temperature climb to just over 1200′C and then the pressure began to drop, and the very thing I was not looking forward to happened…  the gas cylinder needed changing over. In the couple of minutes it took me to change cylinders the temperature dropped back to about 1140′C. To cut my story short I finally got the kiln to 1280′C followed by a 50 minute soak, however neither sets of cones were bending as I had hoped, but as I have to vacate the premises at 4pm I turned off the gas to end the firing and went home feeling somewhat negative about the results of the firing.

The good thing is that the glazes have a wide maturing range from 1260′C to 1280′C. I’d prayed for good results before the firing and…  well I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. The range of colours is quite remarkable, and the use of rutile has produced some stunning autumnal colours! I used the word raving for the title which can mean wild and out of control!

The colours of rutile!

Closeups of two of the jugs.

The slides below show more of the jugs and the amazing range of colours achievable with the same glazes (chun/tenmoku over reactive slip; chun/tenmoku over red taggs yard).

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