Nervous doesn’t even cover what I’m feeling right now. Three of my four bowls are all packed out and ready for the Kiln. I’m hoping a slow fire will be best for now, but to be honest I’m in the dark right now. I have no idea if they will survive, let alone whether the fuse properly without any problems. Below is the picture of them all ready for the fire.
I’m excited, scared, nervous, anxious and oh so many more feelings. It’s Friday now and I’m using the University kiln, so I wont be able to check out what happened to them until Monday. I’m going to be complete nervous wreck come Monday - hopefully I will have nothing but good news.
They came out really well, considering they were my first attempt at throwing a new material and firing. There was about a 10% shrinkage, which I was expecting as I was using bullseye powder with other materials. These few images are just out of the kiln and before a good clean up.
I spent some time washing and scrubbing, getting rid of much of the silica sand and talc as possible. I think much of the sand talc stuck to the bowls because of they had not dried for long enough. Interesting to see and realise what needs to change.
I’m really happy with how they cleaned up. I did some hand cold processing to clean up the base. They seemed too delicate to try cold processing with machinery, however, I feel future one’s will be able to withstand using machines to clean up the pieces. Saying that, I feel if I dry the pieces properly cold processing will be possible prior to firing in the kiln. I have also noticed that after several weeks of leaving the pieces, the colour brightened, as when they originally came out the kiln they were quite darkened in colour. This change - surprisingly - as time progressed and without cleaning or touching the pieces further. This could be an interesting development with future pieces to see how they develop over time with a different drying process.
I cant wait to make and fire more pieces, and bigger pieces - and develop this further.
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