baker baker

Or In the night kitchen if you ever read that book when you were a kid, I loved it when I was little and now I love reading it to judson, he loves it to. Mixing clay that was my day just mixing clay, I felt like a baker with dust all over me and in my hair. I usually make slip in my blunger and let it dry in vats with wire mesh on the bottom and an old sheet lining it to hold the clay in. The water drips through and evaporates. It takes about two to three weeks to get the slip to a workable constancy I'm running behind schedule so I asked a potter friend if I could use his mixer and I made about 850 pounds of workable clay today! It feels good, nothing like a big pile of clay to get you motivated!
But with all I had to do and not being at the shop most of the day I never got around to unloading the kiln today I hate to let a kiln sit full of pots when I know its cool enough to unload but by the time I got back and unloaded the clay I had just enough time to get a quick shower and jet off to pick up judson from daycare. So I think I'll unload it in the morning after I take judson to daycare and take a bike ride I haven't been able to go all week and its killing me I need some exercise. I'll try to post somepictures tomorrow.

I peeked in the kiln

Not good I think I missed the reduction for the shino. Go figure I was trying a slightly lighter reduction cycle in the third firing and I guess I shouldn't have with the shinos this time, you know it always looks worse than you think when you are peeking in the small spy holes and the crack in the door with a flashlight. So I'm trying not to feel too down but times like this make me think all the earthenware electric potters out there got it made and why aren't I doing slipware cuse' I have always loved it? So what's so great about reduction anyway? Well I will see tomorrow I did snatch out a few promising glaze test tiles and that always fun! The rest of the kiln looks good though. And if any of you want a great deal on some pasty gray shino pots with some great slip trailing hey you know were to find them!

firing the kiln......

well I haven't had much to blog about lately but that doesn't nothing has been going on. I am firing the kiln tonight almost done, here are a few images of pots in the process of being glazed and a bisque bowl with porcelain slip trailing. I have quite a few pots in this load with slip trailing that are glazed in a translucent shino. I haven't made many of these in a while I did have a few in the last load just to see how the glaze would looked since the kiln rebuild the looked great! So I made a bunch more for this firing. I love slip trailing, the feel of fluid clay dancing as I swing the slip filled syringe over the wet leather hard surface it is a wonderful tactile experience and very messy but its no fun if you don't make a mess!