Loaded to the gills

Busy doesn't even begin to describe the studio last night. I got there at 5:20 pm and immediately began unloading my shelves of all of the green ware that I have been stockpiling over the last couple of months in order to begin loading up a bisque kiln. The first picture shows everything that I had, but there were a few pieces that did not make it in. Not to worry, there will be another bisque in about a month. The rest of the images show the bottom, middle and top layers. As you can see, it is loaded really tight. This kiln will fire off tonight and will be ready for me to begin the glaze prep on Friday. If I can get my hands on a couple of large buckets, I will also mix up the new Plainsman clear base that is so nice on the Polar Ice. I will also mix up some smaller buckets of the same clear base but will tint each with violet, pansy purple, tangerine and yellow Mason stains. Fingers are crossed that nothing cracks.

Sunday's pots on Monday

So I'm a wee bit late posting these, but this is a little bit of what I was up to on Sunday. Well, Ok, so I did not make all of this on Sunday, but I touched them all. I refined the feet on the squared off plates, wiped off the shellacked mugs and the tea bowls, threw 10 tall mugs and 4 porcelain bowls (trimmed them too after a few minutes in the sun to dry a bit), and and refined the lid to the casserole. 

I will handle the mugs tomorrow, uncover the rest of the wet work to air dry and terra sig and shellac the 3 square plates. not a bad day. I probably could have done more, but I have been suffering a bit from "potter's elbow" and arthritic thumbs and fingers, so I took it a bit easy on the grunt work. 

I am starting to use more of the terra sig slips on the bas relief pots. I have added in a bit of Mason Stain 6600 black and ceramic rutile powder in one and just the rutile in another, and then apply them to the pot when bone dry. As soon as the sig is dry, I shellac the pattern on. This gives me colour on the very first layer and a white ground colour which I then go over again, wipe off again (but not too much). This process is still evolving in my mind and am thinking along the lines of octopi and other life forms that have a curly cue nature like tentacles, and tendrils etc...