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Showing posts with label more test tiles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label more test tiles. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

R.I.P. Malcolm Davis


Malcolm Davis passed away yesterday - such a loss! He took American shinos to another level with his years of work on carbon trap recipes and firing techniques, discovering how wax resist over the glaze could give these wonderful patterns, etc.etc. He will be sorely missed.

Spent part of the morning with John Britt, dipping some of his test tiles in some of the flashing slips I made. He'll be putting them in the Energy Exchange wood/soda firing this weekend. I opted to skip it since it turns out it won't be just a firing of tiles as I was originally told, and with 155 of my tiles alone (so far), they wouldn't have room for all of them. So John and I will be doing another firing in his small soda kiln in another week or so. That will actually work better for me since I fire with gas and only introduce a bit of wood in the kiln, so I'll get much more useable results for from that firing.

In the meantime, the flashing slip tests in the wood/soda kiln will give us a good idea if I've fluxed them enough for cone 6 or too much and make some adjustments before we fire in Johns kiln.

On another note, this gives me more time to batch some more cone 6 glazes I've designed for soda. So, it's all good.

I spent the rest of the day (still at it), redoing my notes and chart on the finished tiles, and got my early dinner prep done for tonight's dinner - fettucine with an alfredo type sauce with sauteed mushrooms and ham. It's one of my favorite pastas, but since I put it in the category of "heart attack specials", I only make it once or twice a year and hope the wine will lessen the damage from the cholesterol. :-)

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Under the Christmas tree farm scene


Jim spent a few hour yesterday setting up the farm and village scenes under the tree. Most of these are from my childhood, with a few new and vintage additions over the years. These go very well with my overly decorated, Victorian looking Christmas tree.

Started another nutty fruity sourdough early this morning and it should be finished it's first rise in half hour or less. I'll be back in the studio right after breakfast, then running back and forth to the house, dealing with the bread, as needed.

I met yesterday's goal of dipping and marking 28 new test tiles. That makes a total of 64 tiles now finished. There are two batched which I need to dip this morning and more glazes and slips to weigh out later today. Glazes are not a challenge for cone 6 reduction, but flashing slips are, so I've tweaked some common flashing slips, upping the Neph Sy in some, doing the same in others but adding some borax and/or soda ash.

We had a lovely steak dinner at the Knife and Fork last night, and brought half of it home, so we have leftovers tonight which means I get a full studio day. Life is so very good!