Hello, everyone. Yesterday morning, we woke up a bit early, because we
were excited. We were going to run a glaze firing in our kiln
for the first time. If you remember how you felt in the morning of your first school
trip, our feeling was very similar to that. We packed the kiln the night before. I double checked all bottom
parts of the pieces were clean. Otherwise they would get stuck on
the kiln shelves.
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| Inside the kiln at 1198c. |
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| Kiln controller |
Switch on! We kept going to the garage to see how hot the kiln went up.
It has to heat up slowly. Anytime I went there, I was listening if there
were any bomb! sounds, but nothing. The kiln reached target temperature
at 1240C about lunch time. We still went back t the garage to check how
cool the temperature came down, in turn, or together. We were just like two excited children laughing and running between the garage and the house in light rain!
It didn't become cool enough last night to open it. So we waited until
this morning. Yes, we woke up a bit early again this morning. Ta-da!
Everyone was safe. Kiln shelves were also safe. Here are some photos I
took this morning.
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| a snap shot of sheep and rabbit |
It was our test run for our glazes. We fired a few new pieces and re-firing pieces. It went well. The white glaze above was a bit thicker than usual. So some of details were buried. I textured the middle sheep, and decorated him with iron oxide. They look like sugar coated. I will take photo individually tomorrow.
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| My new chameleon, no name yet! |
Oribe glaze was low, and slightly thick, I wanted to see how it would fired. You can see he looks stunning!
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| He is a character! |
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| I love him! |
I also run a test on my new
chameleon chopstick rests. It was success!
They look so cute! I want one for myself, too! Bigger ones are for
adults, and little ones for kids.
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| 'Mimi, do you like them?' |
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| They are doing synchronised swimming! |
They look like this before firing. They look Japanese traditional sugar deserts!
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| Chameleons and sunfish chopstick rests |
So we have had a happy day. There are much more to glaze and decorate. Next sunny day will be our second glaze firing day!
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| How about a long walk on the beach instead? |
I ADORE Mr. Chameleon! And the chopstick holders are SO much fun! It looks like the firing was a resounding success. I am looking forward to seeing what comes out after the second firing :)
ReplyDeleteThank you! I love him, too! Firing was exciting and fun! We are very keen to do the second firing, but rain is forecasted for several days (of course, it always rains during Wimbledon!). We will be patient and wait... We are trying to power our kiln on solar energy. :-)
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