Studio view

Sneezing, coughing  and sipping lemsip, I never the less emptied the kiln this morning. Clutching my head and moaning a lot. Man, I just hate having a cold.

I had fired up overnight, and this is the results of a few weeks work trying to capture the view from my studio window. Plus a few Little Owls and Fat Birds from a commission.
The work is only half finished; some details are glazed, but much remain to be done.  The tiles are tests, mainly, to see what is what.

The tiles to the right are coloured with engobe, which is essentially a clay sludge mixed with mineral oxides. Mainly cobalt and some black stains. I am happy with the colours of some of the clouds.

The tiles to the left are a mixture of glazes and engobes.

The big question is; do I like the red frame? Everything will be thrown into one of my metal dustbins, covered in sawdust and set alight.

That should shake things up a bit. Smoke firing tend to alter the colours of the ceramics . I have written about that a few times in this blog; here is an example.
The colours often become more glowing and they tend to merge a bit. When the whole thing doesn’t crack and break, of course.

This is a detail of a smoke fired bowl, straight out of the dustbin. I love the sooty deposits.

And here it is cleaned up. It was incredibly orange before the smoke firing – it still is, but less so.
I am talking to myself about the red frame around the view, really. Will it still be too lairy after the barrelling, or will it calm down? Decisions, decisions.

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