Back to back firings 2/16 & 2/17

Continuing with glazing and firing, we unloaded two kilns, one yesterday & another today. Tonight is our last firing before Baltimore. We leave Sunday.




Here is a grouping of those Tesselated pots Steve has been working on.

Firing 2/14/10

This firing went smoothly without mishaps and with good results.

Here's a new piece by Cherie... a willow tree. The first photo shows her waxing the leaves after the green glaze is applied to protect it from the bright blue which is applied on the rest of the pot.




and then, here we go again.
We'll fire the next group probably tomorrow night.

With a little bit of luck

We are now finished making pots for the Baltimore show but continuing with our glazing and firing. Above is a photo of Steve loading the bisque and below you see us glazing and waxing.



Above is the loaded kiln before firing 2/12/10 and below shows the finished pieces.



The real story here though is that Steve got up again to check the firing at 5:30 am this morning and this time it was done and cooling fast. After checking the temperature of upper and lower levels of the kiln, he turned off the exhaust fan to slow down the cooling process. At this point it was down to 1700 degrees Fahrenheit. Sleepy eyed he turned the kiln back on and went back to bed to catch a little more shut eye. When he returned at 7:20 am the kiln was back up to full temperature! O no! We thought we lost the entire kiln load of pots because the length of time that the pots remain at a given temperature actually increases the "real" temperature the pots are feeling so......we really thought we were cooked! Imagine our surprise when we opened the kiln this afternoon and discovered that none of the glazes had run on the shelves or blistered and only showed a little extra stress!
These pots had two lives! That's a little bit of luck!


Here's a closeup of our favorite in this kiln. One of the colors on this pot (behind the turquoise) is an improved warm brown.... a keeper.

Kiln Firing 2/9/10

These last two photos feature the new work Steve has made. I posted photos of him making them on 1/6 and 31/2010. The glaze combination on the top one is especially nice and there's more to come.

Back to back firings

While everyone else is getting a lot of snow, we are continuing to work. The storm stories dominate the news but we only got 3-4 inches.


We fired a couple a couple of kiln loads of pots since we last spoke(!) Here are some photos of the first firing which was on 2/7:

We fired a couple

Some glaze tests before we glaze "problem" pots ie.. new pieces we aren't sure about. There are some tiles in front... yep! we have one more tile floor to do in our house.. the entryway and we just might do something unusual there as a conversation piece!
I'll post some photos of the second firing later.

Decorating, Glazing and Firing 2/7/10

You can see from the photos that a lot has been happening around here. We are counting down to our first fair in 2010: American Crafts Council's show at the Baltimore Convention Center February 25-28. Actually, we will set up on the 22nd for the trade, as they say, referring to Wholesale buyers from Galleries. They will place orders with the artists on Tuesday and Wednesday before the show opens to the public on Thursday. Let's hope they've finished with the snowstorms before we get there!
We have been trying to finish making and decorating the pots we want to take to the show. With it being only two weeks away though, Steve has started glazing and firing. Our first firing is tonight.
He'll be getting up to check it for evenness every couple of hours.



We probably only have a couple more days to make pots before the show. It takes time for the pots to dry, be bisqued, glazed and fired again. Then, of course, we will take some time to pack them and drive to the show.

New patterns & new orchids

A Beautiful Sunrise!
Here's what we have been up to..........


More inspiration from patterns for Steve..




and from orchids for Cherie......

Oncidium Sharry Baby 'Yellow Panda'