BEING RIGHT

I knew it, I just knew it ... I knew from the combination of ingredients I used in my recent quadraxial tests that I would find among the middle tiles a 'WINNER'.  Some of the corners of the group of tests were odd ingredients in odd proportions - no I am not telling and NO there is no chrome in here.   I felt that by being extreme and not playing it safe I would score a good one.  Here it is ... I was looking for high colour and crusty texture and I found it.  Now to use this one as a starting point for more tests, line blends here I come.  There were a few other gems in there among the 25 tiles in this kiln load.  These are for more sculptural works, NOT functional work. The favourite looks a bit flakey and was only fired to 1000 C, but is in fact well bonded to the surface.  I am very, very pleased.  More in the kiln already to try out a few more temperature ranges.  Woo Hoo!  Oh boy all that study of glaze tech at ANU has really empowered me.  Thank you Gail Nicholl, Janet DeBoos and Greg Daly - MWAH!!  Now I hope you are about to pop over to Mud Colony blog to catch up with my potter pals who blog for your information and entertainment.

What else have I been doing?

What else?   I've been doing some clay shrinkage and glaze tests at Central TAFE (CIT) dry colourful ones, mostly in oxidation and am very keen to see the reduced glaze tests below which will come out of the gas kiln tomorrow.  I've been wanting to do those ones based on Anne Hirondelle's earlier work for years but my own gas kiln had not been installed.  Fingers crossed for an exciting result with these tests.  

My large platters have been drying out slowly and are finally in the bisque kiln.  Just allowing myself to be loose and to play with ideas I'd been too busy for has allowed a whole new style to evolve - I didn't see that coming.  I've been hand building the platters with Walkers BRT clay with is nice and groggy and robust, but cracks if left in a draught, guess how I know that.

I had some rubber stamps I had carved to hand and pressed the stamps into the soft crunchy clay around the rim to see what happened.  I liked it, so I printed into the clay surface too.  These are about 60cm wide.  Quite a contrast from my usual uptight porcelain nest forms aren't they?  

The motifs are a bit folksy and reminiscent of European wood carvings, which makes sense given they were carved from rubber blocks, a lovely task on which to spend time.  

In fact the platters were designed to receive certain glazes - dry and textural and I have to keep reminding myself of this to stay on task a little.  It is hard to stop carving rubber blocks when you get started.