Let the Beauty of what you Love be what you Do...
~Rumi

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Results!


Just got a fired piece out of the kiln yesterday, and I'm pretty excited about it! I made this bear back in Feb, but have been working on testing glazes in my glaze calc class & wanted to come up w/ something cool before I glazed it.


Soda Fired Bear, Satin Mint Green (modified) glaze.
Height 3 1/2" Width 5" Length 8 1/2"


 This glaze is actually the same glaze (Satin Mint Green "Slop" in which the glaze recipe was modified w/ added copper carb & rutile) I was testing on my previous post. While the test bowl & cup which were soda fired on a recycled clay body did have the elements of green I was looking for, the bear (which was made from Ann's Soda Clay) came out totally different than the test tiles. Not what I expected, but I have to say, I quite like the results!




I've added several different angles just to show the different color variations attained w/ the same glaze. I believe this is partially due to the properties of the glaze itself, but also due to the varying thickness of glaze poured over, as well as effects from the soda kiln. The darkest color on the feet is simply the color of the clay body when soda fired.  From my tests, I found that this glaze is quite drippy, so I left about 3/4" of the feet unglazed, and I still had problems w/ the glaze dripping off, in a rather inconsistent manner. This may be an issue when I when I fire the big bear, but I hope to remedy this by spraying the glaze on lightly. 


Speaking of which, I did a another full round of glaze testing last weekend (the campus was actually closed- so I mixed my glaze recipe last week & took it home to do the triaxial.) I'm retesting the Ann's Soda Clay & testing the High Hills clay body, of which the big bear is made.


They're going in the kiln this week & should be out Monday, along w/ about 13 pieces from my wheel throwing class~  Iooking forward to seeing the results!
:)


10 comments:

marianne said...

oh! love the bear! the variations in the glaze color are lovely & interesting. can't wait to see more (even though i don't really understand the technical terms! :))

Barb said...

Becky, How exciting! That bear is wonderful with the different shadings. It gives it the effect of movement and flow. You really have accomplished a lot. Can't wait to see the next firing. I like to think of your Ponderosa Pines giving off a wonderful scent. The air here in Denver is perfumed with spring.

Linda Starr said...

the bear turned out super, love his look which appears as stone, perhaps the mint glaze does different things on different clay bodies?

clairz said...

Amazing. I hope that sometime you can do a post showing all the bear variations from past firings. I would love to be able to see them all in one place for comparison.

Annie said...

Becky, He turned out beyond beautiful, I love him! Good job!
Yes, a hike soon, I will attempt to find out if there is still snow up there (we just got 22 inches last week)!Or it could be a muddy mess, too muddy to hike, but I will ask around and we have to get up there early as storms are likely to roll in the afternoon. But if it is too early for that hike we can do another. I have a four day weekend this week any chance you could come up? Email me.
xoxo

Tammie Lee said...

oh yes, a wonderful bear! i love that you are excited about it!

Michael (Light-In-A-Box) said...

Wow, you made this! This is beautiful work, I'm certainly impressed! :-)

Randy said...

That bear is awesome. I really like the way you glazed it. I hope you will share the new pieces with us. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I'll be working on home work and buying supplies for my final.

John Brisson said...

Well worth the wait!!!

John

Rick said...

I like the results too ! A very unique outcome. Nice work, Becky !