Prudence's Pottery

I was delighted to take part of the Ottawa Guild of Potters' Great Bowls of Fire . This is an annual event raising funds for the Ottawa Food Bank. I was one of the bowl markers and helped a bit of the set up. My bowls are the dark blue ones at the bottom of the picture.

I've been told pots can explode in the kiln if they are not bone dry....guess I didn't believe it and had to try it myself.....this is what'd happened when I opened up the kiln yesterday....exploded pots. Good that there were only 3 of them. I even preheated the kiln for an hour but then it still wasn't good enough. I guess I really should rush the whole process like my husband always tells me. Well, I'd learnt my lesson the hard way! :(

Time really flies, it's already boxing day 2010. This has definitely been an eventful year for me....started my own home studio the end of June, participated my first Ottawa Guild of Potters sale in November, visited Italy, France and Barcelona at the end of September... The home studio came together quickly with help from my wonderful husband and the kiln expert, Jim. I managed bisque firing quite quickly, however, glaze firing took quick a bit longer. I had 3 glazes made: black, mysterious blue and randy's red. The black was just a disaster, it's really matte finish...just looks nothing like the black from the studio. After using twice, I had decided to stop using it. It just wasn't worth the time and it's always disappointing....The mysterious blue started out ok, but there are always pinholes on the pots. Most of them I had to re-fire again and even then they were still not 100% fixed! The Randy's red seems to be a little better, but it doesn't l...

http://www.ottawaguildofpotters.ca/news%20entries/fall-sale-2010-at-the-hellenic-community-centre# The Fall Sale of the Ottawa Guild of Potters is scheduled to be held from November 25 - 28, 2010 at the Hellenic Community Centre. The poster has been finalized for printing and subsequent distribution. November 25-28 / le 25-28 Novembre 2010 Thursday 4-10 / jeudi 16:00-22:00 Friday 10-10 / vendredi 10:00-22:00 Saturday 10-6 / samedi 10:00-18:00 Sunday 10-5 / dimanche 10:00-17:00

Loading the kiln was my biggest concerns/worries when I was thinking to start my home studio. I had never done it before and I've heard many bad things that can happen if you don't do it right. I guess that's true for everything we do, if we don't do it right, bad thing can happen! Anyway, to prepare myself for loading the kiln for the very first time. I went online to check out the How to. eHow.com is a great website, I've found many pottery videos with excellent information. Of course, thanks to the instructors putting in all the effort producing the videos! I love those videos from Emily (http://www.littleepottery.com/). She explains the steps very well. With her help, I was able to prepare my kiln furniture (put kiln wash on them), learnt how to load my kiln properly etc and here is the result.....First load ever started on July 31 at around 2 pm with preheat set for an hour. It contained 14 pieces with some of them stack. It took just over 9 hours to...

It has finally happened....despite all of my worries......my very own pottery studio! I've been quite busy with my new home studio. The wheel and kiln has been delivered at the end of June and everything was ready to go by mid July. Speical thanks go to Jim @ Woodlawn Kiln Service and my very supportive husband. Without them, my studio won't be ready this quickly! I've been using my brand new wheel making new pieces. The wheel is nice and quiet. The new clay (from Pottery Supply House) is so easy to throw with. I LOVE IT! With the home studio, I was able to work on something that I have never done for a long time.....soap dispenser! I enjoy my new studio very much, although there are still lots of thing to learn. The next thing is to load the kiln!

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I've been spending the past few weeks making mugs. These are the four that I brought home last Friday to attach handles on. I always run out of time at the studio, and I don't like attaching handles in a rush, so the easiest way would be to bring them home. It's a little risky but I would take the risk and hopefully do a better job than working on them at the studio. Anyways, here they are, some new square greenware (before first fire) mugs: