Recent spins..

To my Glencairn Workshop friends...I'm sorting the rest of my pictures and will publish them soon!

Here are some things I've been working on since I returned..

I picked up some Miller (50)? stoneware that fires almost black at ^ 8.

These are Laguna 60... ^6 speckled buff.. I've been having trouble with this clay body and glazes...you will see.. anyway trying some "box" projects I didn't get to at Glencairn.

The jug top right is unfired..the rest except for the lids are bisqued Laguna 250 (a Raku body)

I picked up a small used  electric kiln that I am going to strip and attempt raku with..more on that later obviously.

Final glazed work...and several problems to resolve. 

I didn't have wadding around for the lids and so I used some fragments of bisqued clay.  Three little piecs wasn't enough and some of the lids warped. Next time I will have wadding on hand.  I like how the dark clay behaved and some of the ^5/6 glazes survived ^8 but light colors like Laguna Walnut Spice and Oatmeal seem to foam leaving either a matte skin with pinholes or a glossy one with tonnes of micro bubbles that sound and feel like micro bubble wrap when I rub my finger over it. I've had this trouble with the Laguna 60 pretty consistently at ^6 too but it's not limited to that clay body. Maybe I just got a bad batch of dry glaze but I really need to start running sample tiles to figure this stuff out! I also want to startt mixing my own glaze from scratch.

Micro-bubbles! Any help out there? Could my well water have anything to do with this?

This is the dark clay. The lid didn't warp because I fired it in place. It took some carful work with a flexible putty knife to get it free! The glaze is either Laguna Cappuccino or Chun Red with either Walnut Spice or Oatmeal on the inside and splached over the outside. (Take some notes, right?)  The inside glaze is frothy and the outside has micro bubbles where the lighter color was splashed over the base glaze. 

I added some course sand to the dark clay for effect. stil have some micro bubbles in the glaze but no light colors here so maybe it was the effect of temperature in this case. I lake the form anyway and will try to reproduce/ perfect it.

  Bowls and cups in Laguna 60.

Some fresh throws..

All except lower left are the Miller dark clay.

Bowls with and without course sand.

Foam and pinholes. I would be happy if I had intended it. I kind of I like the textures, but I need to know why! WHy why why!