This Week I Will Be Mostly...Glazing.

This week it's all about glazing. In fact I have plenty of glazing to do because I have enough bisque fired pots to fire two glaze kilns (which I plan to fire next week - all being well of course).

In the photo above you can see the kiln shed as it was a week or so ago -with pots waiting to be fired in the bisque kiln. And below are a few last minute shelf fillers - some tiny stoneware cottages, in a mixture of stoneware and black clays.

After I fire a kiln I always leave it to cool for a whole day in between. This makes sure all the pots are cooled down to 'room temperature' before I crack it open. Even so, they can still ping with the temperature change and make noises! I cracked this bisque kiln open last Friday: and below shows the kiln shed after I've opened and unpacked everything.

You can pack more pots into a bisque firing than into a glaze. In a bisque kiln the pots can touch each other and be stacked, but in a glaze they can't. So I already had some 'spare' bisque fired pots left over from the last firing. And this is why I've got two glaze kiln's worth of pots to glaze this week.

As you can see in the photo above and below there's a variety of small batches here. I've discovered that small batching in this way makes the best economical use of my kiln. Over time you get to know how many pots will fit onto each shelf and in what combinations. Even so, I still scribble a small 'floor plan' of each kiln shelf for each glaze kiln just to make sure everything will fit. There's nothing worse than having a couple of glazed pots left over which you can't fit in!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these photos. My studio is currently a mess of glazing buckets, sponges and sieves! And there's still plenty of pots left to do...