For the last few weeks I've been concentrating on making enough stoneware pieces for a soda firing. I finished making slightly more than the allocated two cubic feet of ware in early October as I wasn't sure how much I'd see after cataract surgery on Oct 4th. All went well and within 24 hours I was astonished to see bright blue, and whites that I…
In a comment on yesterday's blog Lynda asks me to explain why I might like to re-fire a couple of pieces in an upcoming soda firing. Most of the time the heat, flame and soda combine to give interesting, pleasing surfaces all around the pots when the kiln has reached its top temperatures.. in our case cones 10 to 12. Flashing slips can produce orange…
In the previous blog I showed photos of most of the work that was fired in the Shadbolt Centre's Vault Kiln for eleven enthusiastic members of TriCity Potters. There's lots of good colour resulting from a variety of sprayed flashing slips. Some folks thought things were rather grey but that is something to learn about and use or avoid in future firings. Some slips are…
On Sunday ten members of TriCity Potters were finally able to go to Shadbolt Centre to collect our pots from last week's soda firing. As has become the arrangement now, in the time of Covid, we were invited to bring our two cubic feet of ware on the previous Monday but were not allowed to help load, fire or unload. Several participants used the…
It's almost two weeks since the exciting day when I returned to Shadbolt Centre to collect my sixteen pots from the latest soda firing. By the time I arrived almost all of the pots had been claimed and my pieces were arranged on a separate table for me. Safety precautions are important so we were given specific time slots to be there. I wore…