Matte Black

Well I took a gamble on the matte black in the Electric Kiln Ceramics book. I got a few pots in the little kiln, two decent sized vases and an oval serving dish. The big deal for me is that I'm not liking the cone 6 firings. I should say the 818P isn't liking the cone 6. The envirovent slows down the cone 6 firings to a two day process no matter what I do. My only recourse is to fire with out the envirovent on. This time I tired to do that, but the red earthenware was gassing off so badly I couldn't see my witness cones. I decided to just pop it on for a second to clear it just to check the cones. I cleaned out the atmosphere at the end real well for a soak of 50 minutes. It was really a slow cool though as the kiln began to cool off slowly with the dials set to low. Can't wait to see if I've got a glaze that I like. I'm kicking myself for not putting at least one of the iron red samples in this load. Oh well, next time.

Fall

I've not had much to say this fall because I've not been able to work in the studio much at all. I'm finally on Christmas break from EOU and I'm back on the horse. Threw a few mugs today and have resolved to design a new mug form since I'm not impressed with anything I've made today. I pulled out the sodium silicate to make some crackle slip mugs. I did a few and had some fun, but I my slip was a bit thin so I couldn't get a nice brush mark out of my coarse hair brushes. The crackle is only slightly interesting and isn't at all what I was looking for. I resigned to make one more mug with just brush marks and no crackle. Tomorrow I'll make and assemble a mug. I'll post a picture if something of note comes from my effort.