Porcelain Kyusu

I picked up my first bag of porcelain last week. I usually work with a variety of stoneware clays. I was curious, so I'm trying a bag of "Frost".

Hollis Engley had a few of these cool Japanese teapot's on his Blog this week, which inspired my first porcelain pot. I really enjoyed making these Kyusu's. They are a very petite teapot. I found the porcelain clay to be a little on the sticky side, but still a very smooth ride :)

Getting Pinholing Under Control

This pot shows a little sample of what I have been dealing with for 2 months. It's been frustrating to say the least. 4 large kiln loads of pottery, each a small improvement, but still unacceptable results. Until kiln load #5. I changed my firing schedule to include a 20 minute hold at 1975 degrees. I also did a 15 minute hold at the end of the fire. I was really happy to see a great improvement. I plan to increase the mid-fire hold to 30 minutes. I'm hoping that will take care of the remaining pinholing. (I'm posting my glaze firing schedule below. Any suggestions or comments are appreciated.)

Here are a few pots from kiln load #5. Maybe a pin hole here and there, but much improved

My Pie Dishes came out flawless :) Yea!

After I got back from Maui, I wanted to make some fun stuff for my Grandkids. I did some slab work. Big Flowers and a big Dragon Fly to hang on the wall. I also played around making some fun Buttons.



I went to a gift shop yesterday and found these cool keys. I used them in this platter, along with some slip trailing. I may have over done it, but that's just my style.

I have a couple holiday sales lined up and an open studio sale in November. I need to get some good inventory made. Thanks again everyone who responded to my glaze problems. I appreciate it.
Best glaze fire schedule so far:
150 per hour ramp to 300 degrees
350 per hour ramp to 1975 degrees / 20 minute hold/soak
150 per hour ramp to 2185 degrees / 15 minute hold/soak
Cone results: Nice 5.5

Ten things I love about MAUI

Ten things I love about MAUI:

• Regardless of the weather, it's always a beautiful day
• You can find chocolate covered macadamia nuts in every store
• You don't need lotion
• Most everyone is on vacation and happy
• Maui coffee
• Walking on the beach and having waves wash over your feet

• Spotting Turtles while eating breakfast
• Haleakala at sunset takes your breath away
• No beach is off limits.. They belong to everyone
• There is always a cool breeze
• The ocean water is warm and clear
• Coconut Syrup on waffles
• Anyone can wear a bikini on the beach (LOL)
• There is 16.7 million shades of blue in ocean water
• My contact lenses never get dry

• Falling to sleep and waking up to the sound of waves
• Mango Salsa is always available at Costco
• Mai Tai's at Cheese Burger In Paradise
• Evian costs a lot less
• Never ending fresh PINEAPPLE
• You can dress up or dress down flip flops
• My husband wants to buy me everything (I don't let him:)
• Dancing palm trees
• Starbucks serve Coconut Mocha Fraps

• Everyone says Aloha
• Everyone says Mahalo
• Driving around in a convertible Mustang
• Blasting IZ and singing along :)
• Looking out the Lani' and seeing 3 other Islands
• Every where you look is God's Masterpiece

(OK.. so it was a few more than 10 things :)

:( Another Bad Firing

I'm throwing up my hands.. I can't figure it out.
My 3rd glaze firing in the big L&L Easy Fire turned out bad again. Pin holes galore. Glaze results look totally over fired. Glaze colors are way off. Glazes textures are way off. Weird stuff like the inside bottoms look like there is dirt under the glaze. (I strain all my glaze, so that's not it). I fired the schedule suggested by MC6G. According to the witness cones, it was a perfect ^6 firing. My Bisque fire witness cones showed a perfect ^04 result.
This is a big kiln and I keep losing weeks worth the work. Sorry, but I'm not posting photo's. I just didn't feel like taking pictures of more bad firing results. I guess I should be happy that there was no glaze bubbles this time.
I think the L&L Easy Fire should be re-named the L&L Poopy Fire. Sigh.

Glazing Day

I know.. it's boring to see pictures of glazed pottery, but that's all I've got today. So can anyone tell me why the phone rings 7 million times on glazing day? It makes me nuts.

I used a variety of glazes today. A couple I made from recipes, a couple nice bright "Spectrum" pastels and some old "Coyote" glaze that needed to get used up. I'm going to load the kiln in the morning. Please say a little prayer that my L&L does what it's supposed to tomorrow :)

Pie Dishes & Other Odds-n-Ends

Well besides burning my hand on a peep-hole plug (Yeeouchh).. I threw pie dishes today. As you can see my pie dishes are fairly deep. Yeah.. Apple Pie Nevada Style :)

Yesterday I trimmed my little bowls. I tried some lettering stamps on them. I applied underglaze in the letters but it didn't turn out as crisp as I would have liked. I think I'm doing something wrong there. Maybe I should have waited with the underglaze until after the pots were bisque fired. Any advice would be cool.

On this cart is the results of my perfect ^04 bisque fire. Wheeww! It took a while to get the L&L kiln figured out. That was a very packed kiln.
This plate was thrown up-side-down. I got the idea from a Youtube clip. It was a fun, cool idea. The cut off is with a stretched spring wire, which creates a cool effect for the top of the plate.
If your interested here's the link to the YT clip: http://bit.ly/FVJKd
It's been a good weekend in the studio.
©Copyright Cindy Gilliland 2009

Sgraffito Hawaiian Petroglyphs

My first attempt at "Sgraffito" was consuming. I actually forgot to eat lunch... For me that's unheard of.
I used B-mix to throw my pot. The slip I just made from my mutt recycle clay. The hardest part was deciding what to carve on the pot. Well... Since I kind of like Hawaii (just kind of) I thought I would give the Hawaiian Petroglyphs at shot.
I think it turned out pretty cool. I threw 6 large mugs today with the same clay and slip combination. I'm going to try some Sgraffito on them tomorrow. I'm thinking a clear glaze would be right for this piece.