Making my glazes and getting all my chemicals into their 5 gallon buckets was quite a task. I think I’ve been spoiled by having the nice glaze bins at other studios, because a 50 lb. bag of chemicals does not fit into a 5 gallon bucket. Somewhere throughout the years i had thought they fit perfectly. Apparently I was wrong. But, it’s fine, I just have about 1/4 of a bag left and they are rolled up tight. Hopefully Will won’t get into them out of curiosity one day.

The sink is in and the water. Do you see that in the picture below. It’s beautiful. I was desperate to get going glazing so I made 2 of my glazes with the hose outside. Glad to have water inside now so I can use warm water. I really like to mix glazes with warm water as it helps them settle in….I’m sure there is a scientific explanation but i will just be simple about it.

Speaking of simple, nice transition huh. I am really excited about simplifying my designs a bit. I am using a clear glaze that I have found to be quite perfect, it’s called Kate the Younger Clear. I like to fire to about cone 5 1/2 and it works well with that. No crazing and no pin holing. Being a clear glaze, it really needs to have these qualities for my pots because I want the body of the pot to show. The lines that I do at the wet stage show up really well in this glaze. It brings out the slip decoration really well too. I’m working on simplifying the patterns and cutting back my time of working on each pot. Between the colored slips and clear glaze I think I’m headed in a good direction.

I’ve also included pictures of some patterns around my house that I have brought into my work.

I used to paint all my patterns with glazes i made and commercial glazes then wax resist them and then glaze the pot. Now, I can do most all the work at the wet stage, which is called the green stage and is my favorite time with the clay. Then I can use this clear glaze and another clear with a little bit of titanium dioxide, which will be in another post specifically about glazing. I’ll put the recipes in that as well.

Whew! and most of this during 3 to 4 hr. nap times for Will. my new motto, “sleep will sleep”.

Thanks for reading.