Not All Kilns or Firings Are Alike

Bluebird Flower Pot

Here's the inside of the Bluebird Flower Pot even the base is layered. Notice how blue the glaze is, not what I expected.

 Textured Pot

The glaze on these first two pots didn't fire like I wanted them to. I used my slow cool and same firing schedule but I guess not all kilns or firings are alike. Perhaps the kiln needs to be broke in? 

This is the way the glaze should have turned out. More shiny with green and gold. The top two pots were on the top shelf, maybe I'll see how that glaze does on a different shelf. 

Here are the cones from the glaze firing, cones 5 and 6. I'll have to go back and check my blog posts from my previous kiln and see if the cones were the same. Could have fired a little hotter perhaps.

The bear and owl bowls came out great but the rest had debris in the clear glaze. I think the lid of the kiln had residue that dropped into the glaze.

The green (sage green) of the luna moth platter (in the background) is too dark but I'll make another one and use a different green. I do like how the orange flowers on that platter turned out with the vine connecting them. Lori was right about that advice as that tied the design together. The front bowl has grit in the glaze.

Here's the grit in the glaze, can you see it? It looks like sand. I didn't use any sand in my firing either. Woe is me, that's three bowls and one platter for the smashing pile. Ugh. I can only fit two bowls or one platter on a half shelf. I didn't have any small items made to fill in the odd spaces. I'll have to correct that. 

I may need to get two more shelves to make my firings more efficient. What is the tallest post you have used with kiln shelves? I have another glaze firing cooling down, we shall see how those turn out. Up next details about my recent bisque firings. Thanks for reading and for all your comments and suggestions.

Sgraffito Jaunt

Here are a couple more platters I made, an owl and a sunflower. I guess I'm on a sgraffito jaunt right now. I think the branch structure is a little busy so I'll black out one of the branches below the owl's body. I may add some brown or gray to the tree branches.and revise the moon.

I never know if I should make the rim the same color as the background or leave it white. What do you think? Thanks for reading and for all your comments.