Trader Tom's Ceramic Projects

Thanks for the encouragement!

I dropped off the bowl today at Georgie's kiln. They were loading the kiln today, so it shouldn't be too long of a wait.

There was some fantastic stuff waiting in line on the shelf. A couple of giant ceramic monster masks caught my eye.

I like my bowl and can't wait to get it fired, but now I'm curious to see how some of the other pieces turn out.

This really is a cool hobby!

I perused the aisles and talked to one of the workers there about mixing mason stain. I don't know if I'll use it on this bowl, but I may try using some of the mason stains in the near future. Looks like I can get some cool washes and effects with it.

Yay! The bowl survived the bisque fire. When you tap it, it rings like a bell. Now the glazing begins...

Okay, so I started some glazing this morning. I figure I'll do a limited run of these in a variety of different color combinations.

This first one I'm going to glaze with a silk black glaze on the exterior of the bowl, a mystic blue rutile glaze on interior, and the girls will have a wipe effect using a winter blue to show off details.

I started with the winter blue wipe away glaze. It goes on looking like a dull olive green.

Here's progress pics:

Another look at the bowl with almost all the glazing done. I need to add a second coat of black this weekend and then I will cart it off to the kiln for glaze fire next week.

The colors will be totally different when fired. The reddish interior turns a rutile brownish mottled blue and the greenish girls will be blue.

Pins and needles until it's out of the kiln. We are all holding our breaths! Wendy

Looks like the bowl and a couple of other pieces I dropped off made it through the glaze firing. Sounds like the glaze on the bottom might have been a little of an issue, and might have stuck a little bit, but I will pick them up tomorrow and see how they came out. Hopefully pics tomorrow. :)

If they kiln wash their shelves it should pop off without a problem. I hope that's the case. A dremmel with a ceramic bit can grind off excess glaze. I hope that helps, Wendy

Happy Halloween!

I finally got my pieces back from the kiln. They turned out pretty well, I think.

Here's the Vicious Virgin Bowl:

The mystic blue rutile glaze on the interior oxidized darker with more brown than I expected. I took notes last time I applied this glaze for a bluer effect and I used the same number of coats, but I glazes are pretty fickle sometimes. Still, you can see some blue highlights and it looks pretty cool.

The piece has a nice heft and is impressive in person.

The glaze problem the kiln guy mentioned to me turned out to be that the bottom center dimpled upwards slightly because they put the piece on stilts to avoid the bottom glazing sticking to the kiln. The dimple is very slight and looks purposeful almost. It doesn't even show in the pictures.

I also glazed an ashtray in matching colors:

And it wouldn't be Halloween without a skull mug, also in the same matching color with wipe-away:

Thanks, everyone, for looking!

Success!!! A really great vintage feel to your pieces. Congratulations. Thank you for the fun ride, Wendy

Great color choices