Friday 31 May 2013

Look what came out of the kiln

What an exiting day !

Last Thursday we loaded the kiln and started the firing. When firing, we have lots of little dials we need to turn to decide the maximum temperature, how fast it will go up in temperature and how long it will stay at the maximum before going down. The actual firing with a fully loaded kiln took about 7 hours. The cooling down took 2-3 times the amount of time.

This Thursday we unloaded the kiln - and look at the results:

Tracy has made 2 penguins. This is the second one. It broke it's wing so it had to be repaired before firing (which by the way was a success)

This is Ella's version of "a man and a woman" - it turned out really well

This is Ella's tortoise. The plan is to cover it in mosaics - but we will get back to that later.

Anne makes lovely abstract sculptures

And here you have more of Anne's abstract sculptures

Celina has been working on a series of 3 abstract penguins.
It is so satisfying to see that the firing worked well and that nothing got broken. Before this stage a lot of work goes in to making the different pieces.

So what's in line for the next firing ? - Well Christie has a lot of sculptures that have been left to dry. This is the most recent one:
A man and a woman by Christie
And John has been working on his "ménage à trois". A youngster who came visiting asked - "what is it" ? - together the artist and the youngster decided on slugs. Personally I go for a mix between a slug and an anenome. Decide for yourself:

John's slugs

So what is the next stage ? - That is the glazing/enamelling. We will come back to this at a later date.

If you would like to join us - pop along on a Thursday afternoon to visit.

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