In summary

My time at CIT Perth is winding down as the Artist in Residence and the big platters I made in the first few weeks are either cooling down in the kiln or drying out really, REALLY slowly like this one  ...

 and I quite like this fabric 'corsage' I found the other day on the net, which echoes my work.

My platters are made from BRT clay - a coarse terracotta like body that can fire high, but these are for low temperature textural glazes I've been developing.  I've lost a few to cracks during the drying phase - what can you do, say 'meh' and carry on, recycle the dry clay and start again.  No point in getting stressed over it, it happens despite precautions, and there are far more important things happening in the world.
Meanwhile, I've been in then glaze room or on the wheel with a few bags of Southern Ice.  The TAFE students are on holidays yet a surprising number of them are wandering back into college to finish off or collect a few things - such is the pull of this fantastic space and the facilities.
Below is the kind of stuff I've been throwing, focussing on thin walls, flat bases - hopefully with zero 'S' cracks, and thin sharp rims to attain the most translucency I can as suits the Southern Ice porcelain so well. I need to get a few more of my nest forms through the kiln too as I am about to sell a number to a 'collection' - my first collection.  Of the fine cylinder vessels, I intend to glaze the interior with clear glaze and leave the outside polished but with laser decals of the twiggy leafy, nesty imagery that is often characteristic of my work.

Did you read my last post with all those crazy coloured glaze tests?  I'll fire them next week, a set for each of three different temperatures, just to see what happens.

Remember those glaze tests I did the previous week for the reduction firing, and I must photograph the huge kiln to show you, well here are the results.  Nothing that makes me want to jump up and down with excitement and I think the firing was more reduced than I would have liked - but they were snuck into someone else's firing so no complaining.  These are Anne Hirondelle's old glazes I found in an old ceramics magazine and hoarded till now - she used to get some great variegated and metallic golden/pewter results.   It is hard to convey with these pics the great surfaces I achieved.  I will continue with the tests.  Her current stuff is hyper modern looking if you click on the link her name leads to.

There is so much to tell you but I think I will have to do a few more posts later on today or tomorrow.  The deadline for The Mud Colony is looming and I want to be included in this weeks collection of clay related blogs.  Hop over to The Mud Colony, there are eleven other potters there already and new clay bloggers who'd like to link up there are welcome.
Anytime you want to check in on my blog just look for Elaine Bradley on Google - I am the one who is NOT a drummer in a cool Rock band - I wish.