This is the balance of the firing I did with Barbara Curtis @ BPG.

I’ve been experimenting with embellishments on pieces prior-to firing. Slips, colorants and altering the shapes keep the sessions spontaneous for me and allow me some freedom to depend on the final process to yield keepers. I’m very happy with the featured image of a form and technique that I read about on a user forum. It’s a piece that was coated with sodium silicate on the outside while still in a cylinder shape. The outside is blow-dried to create a hard shell and then shaped with only one hand on the inside to accentuate the “crackled” texture on the outside. Once I was done, I felt it needed a little brush work to play over the surface. The brush work was applied while still in green ware stage with a black slip. The final glazing was done with a Butter with Iron glaze in the middle and Celadon collar and foot. There is some interesting play with the glazes mixing at the bottom that makes one want to really inspect how the piece reacted in the kiln atmosphere (click on the pictures for larger view).

The second piece is a porcelain vase with Shino. I used a plastic wrap resist around it while the glaze was still damp and that limited the Shino’s natural carbon-trapping  – making the orange “band” around the form. The plastic was removed right before the glaze firing.

The covered “Thistle” jar was done with a recycled clay body. I played with a loose black slip interpretation of thistles, and was quite surprised that it came out almost blue under the Celadon glaze. Keeping things loose, I pinched the top knob to give it a little whimsy.

All three of these pieces are approximately 7″ with the covered jar knob measuring 9″.

More pieces from this firing are captioned below:

Altered Dip Bowl. Celadon with Boysenberry rim.

Porcelain Noodle Bowl

Noodle Bowl with Iron Oxide brush work under Dinnerset White. Pete’s Cranberry on outside.

Mixing Bowl. Dinnerset White with black slip decoration.

Porcelain vase with subtle Iron Oxide brush work.