September report

Another month had gone by. September was again a busy month. The weather was great until September 21st when a couple of tornadoes swept through Ottawa and Gatineau. It was my first time hearing about tornadoes touched down in Ottawa. The tornadoes were so strong that they flew away many power lines and power plant caused a major power outage. We were so lucky that power was out only for less than 24 hours but many people were out of power for days.

A combination of great weather (a lot more golfing) and the power outage, not much time was spent on pottery making. However, I did do something pottery related (which might be a mistake or a motivation). I signed up for the Christmas sale in December. But the problem is that I will be away for 3 weeks in November! This means in October (today is already October 6) I will have to spend much more time on pottery and prepping for the sale (the motivation 😅).

Well, I started to glaze some pieces in September and looking to make a few more mugs and bowls. Then it will all be glazing and firing the kiln for the rest of October. Wish me luck.

Now back to the studio and get working....

Comments

It has been a busy first month of 2015...

It has been quite a busy month for me. I've been doing some overtime at work but also managed to make new pieces (mostly mugs). Also to fulfil my list last year, I made 2 teapots during the last few days of December and assembled them in January. I think they need to have a couple of teacups to accompany them. :) I will need to make a new lid for this teapot as the gallery is quite small for this teapot and the lid can easily slide into the pot. I will be making bowls this weekend, hopefully I will have enough to fill the kiln soon.

Another disappointment :(

I was firing up my bowls for Ottawa Guild of Potters' annual event: The Great Bowls of Fire last night. I made 7 soup bowls, was thinking to use them to try out different glazing techniques with Ron Roy's Black and Mysterious Blue. When I was potting at the Nepean Visual Art Centre (NVAC), I had this lovely combination of NVAC's black with Mysterious Blue (as seen on the right). However, I've been having trouble with the NVAC's black recipe, so I went with Ron Roy's Black. It looks pretty smooth and all. However, it just doesn't have the same effect as the NVAC's black and mysterious blue. It's quite disappointing. Also, I might have made too thick of a layer for the black, it cracked a little too. notice the chip - this one is with the same technique as shown above) this one is done by pouring in mysterious blue on black Unfortunately, since the chipping is in the inside of the bowl, I can't tak...

Glaze and Chemistry (or should I say glaze chemistry)

Until last weekend, I wouldn't put chemistry and glaze recipe together, because I'd been just following the recipes and didn't think much about the reaction to the glaze between those chemicals. But Ron Roy (the author of Mastering Cone 6 Glazes) workshop had totally changed my perspective. It was a very informative session. Ron showed us how to use INSIGHT and GlazeMaster to analysis glaze recipes and how we can fix it if there is a problem with it. It was a bit like going back to high school Chemistry class and the chemical symbols....NaO, KO, CaO, Al etc...and my brain almost exploded at the end of the second day. :p I have now purchased INSIGHT and my plan is to put in all the glaze recipes I have now and see how stable they are in cone 6. That should be fun. Inventory update: I managed to make my 6 pieces before the end of April. They are mostly plates. For May, I will be making mugs again. :)

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