It's Been A Minute

We fired a cone 3 kiln this past weekend, all my stuff. I got one finished piece out of it, this one:


She darkened up quite a bit in this last firing as you can see. (Some of that is from the wash of black underglaze that I put on her, but some of it is from the more thinly applied, lighter-colored underglazes burning out and revealing the dark clay underneath.)

Which is fine, actually. I want my pieces often to look a bit old and used and even somehow ruined. (What a thing to strive for.)

She is a tiny thing, actually, as you can see from this photo where she's a bit in the background, but next to another piece.

This piece also came through cone 3 just fine. After she cooled down, I added a wash of black underglaze to her (not seen in this photo) and put a mixture of Gerstley borate and water on the colored parts of her skirt which will shine them up while altering and even dulling down the colors. Again, ruination. I have yet to glaze the flowers on the top of her head. They'll be a vivid red, just because.

This piece, too, came through.

and

The spiders are going to have a big learning curve. I want to make more, but I'll have to rethink my strategy. Most of the legs cracked off at the body (They're still being held on by an internal nichrome wire scaffold which also caused problems when it bent out of shape in the firing and cracked out of the clay.) Anyway, this palm-sized thing will go into the garden, a kind of miniature scarecrow but for garden pests smaller than crows.

Bugs still obviously needs his eyes done and the classic black outline to all his features. I think I'm going to give the calavera a Bugs tattoo on the back of her neck or maybe a heart with a ribbon that instead of MOM says MEL (for Mel Blanc, who did the voice of Bugs Bunny).  We'll see.

I got a few other things out of this kiln, too.

And while I was waiting for the kiln to fire, I worked on some smaller masks like this.

She has a very devious look to her, but once she was underglazed, she looked almost saintly. You'll see.

Aside from kiln firing, I spent the long weekend Crunch-sitting. He's getting old, poor puppy. His hips are starting to give him trouble, so he got some aspirin and other anti-inflammatories, and very abbreviated walks. I can't think too much about it, as it's clear that it's the beginning of the end, and that makes me very sad.

So I'm not going to think about it.

I'm supposed to be studying right now. I'm so incredibly far behind that The Brain can't even comprehend how much material we're supposed to know for the two exams we have next Monday. Ugh. I miss The Old Brain, the one that could cram the night before exams and walk away with A's. Now we have to process the information much more slowly, which takes time as it turns out.

And time is running short. Always running short!