Firing fun

Back when I said this (last two paragraphs of the post)... I was ready to fire up the kiln that day, it didn't work out, time passed, I got unsure again... but I finally did the test fire on Sept 2. All seemed well so I painted the ceramic bisque pieces with the kids.

Zurich painted really fast and then took over painting my bowl. I get exhausted with him and gave in, I shouldn't have.

Olea utilized one of the black glazes that had gone dry and was thin, grey and watery (I'd added water and had been intermittently shaking it while fending Zurich off my bowl, but it still hadn't reconstituted) and used it to paint her castle brick. The kid is smart, she did her little castle all herself and it turned out lovely.

I fired it that afternoon with encouragement from a friend.
The pieces all looked pretty much the same after the first firing, except one of the glazes I had as a hand-me-down from my Mother in Law was a specialized glaze that actually glossed over. Good to know.
Gary got home and saw Zurich's work on my bowl and realized it was the one piece for myself and said, "Why did you do that? Don't let him take over." Ya, he's 2.5, I'm a wuss. So I took it outside and sanded it down with sand paper and steel-wool. I couldn't sand the parts that he'd glazed with the specialized glaze (which turned red and glossy).

So then I re-glazed the inside of the bowl with the specialized glaze and put another layer of black in the center and glazed the bottom of the bowl on the outside yellow.
I also added some detail to some of Zurich's pieces and Olea's sun. And re-fired the batch. Better results this time.

So I clear gloss glazed the batch and fired them again.


I think the bowl is usable, the variation in the red is kinda fun with the crisp black and yellow. The little shapes in the bowl are ceramic pieces I think I will try to make into earrings.
But I have learned my lesson. I paint my pieces, Zurich doesn't.
I also learned that I was putting my firing cones in a little wrong (it still worked, but...) so I corrected that on the last firing. I also think that I can do a the matte and the gloss firing in one step rather than two, so I will try that next time.
Here are the glossed pieces. (The random clock is a clock I made for Zurich, he loves clocks and he wanted it in the picture).

Olea's castle

Zurich was thrilled with his "dragon" and "frog" and "airplane" (which I couldn't see the lines on to salvage anything and just left it as he painted it, thankfully he remembers it is an airplane) and wanted to hang them up on his wall like a frog we have hanging in our bedroom. I was happy to help him with this since he wouldn't be carrying them around breaking them (since he'd already chipped the dragon a few times since it came out of the kiln yesterday). The pic of them on the wall are crappy, because I took them with my crappy camera.

So now, time to try some hand build, greenware firing and get some more glaze colors. Blue, pink, purple.... orange etc.

Tonight Gary is taking me to Bombay House to celebrate my birthday. If you've never had a Lassi, you need one. He got his elk yesterday in the archery elk hunt and so he's actually home for my b-day evening and I get elk steaks again. The best present ever, him being home, that is.