More from the recent wood firing.

I thought I had better make good my promise to upload some more photos of the firing we did on August 3rd with the wood fired kiln.

The firing was 10 hours from lighting the kiln to an average of cone 10 in the chamber, approximately 1280 Celsius (2336 F). Whilst I did not get great copper reds this time, the copper red with titanium added to make blue, has worked quite well.

This teapot was one of about 8 that I have made fairly recently. The rest are awaiting glaze firing. Most have handles front and back and are quite large so the front handle gives more confidence when pouring several mugs of tea!

Teapot 8"high by 11" long (203 x 280mm). Iron red glaze with ash glaze splashes.

Small bowls are really great for testing glazes, and seeing what happens when you overlap them.

Bowl, 7" diameter (178mm), various glazes over saturated iron glaze.

The next bowl is my favorite from the firing. I put a good splash of a glaze in it that had been intended for electric firing. The glaze has copper carbonate and silicon carbide in it. If you are very lucky it is possible to get a very pretty range of reds and blues from it in the electric kiln... but can be very tricky. I thought it would be fun to give it a helping hand by firing it in reduction in the wood fired kiln. What I got was not what I expected, but really beautiful.

Bowl 7" diameter (178mm). Copper bearing glaze with silicon carbide, and other glazes over saturated iron glaze.

 The silicon carbide has given this glaze a really interesting texture, as it has gassed out at high temperature giving a pattern of tiny red spots.

The next bowl was made from slab clay that I draped over a plaster mold. Most of the work on the bowl was done whilst it was upside down. I gently formed the bowl on the wheel with it still on the mold, added four feet, and pulled out the surplus clay at opposite sides to give a shell-like form.

Bowl 13" x 9.5" (330 x 240mm). Blue (copper red with titanium dioxide) and copper red glazes inside, and thin carbon trap shino glaze outside.

The next two bowls were made in much the same way, but I trimmed them round. They also stand on 4 feet, which made them very nice to fire in the wood fired kiln as there was much less chance of surplus glaze sticking them to the kiln shelves, and the flame could also pass right underneath.

Bowl 10" diameter (254mm). Blue (copper red with titanium dioxide) and copper red glazes inside.

Underneath was glazed with a very thin layer of carbon trap shino. I encouraged some of the glazes inside the bowl to run out over the rim and around the outside.

Bowl 10" diameter (254mm). Copper red, blue and nuka glazes inside, with runny ash glaze on part of rim.

Vase with ash glaze over simple glaze made from local clay, feldspar and whiting.

Ash glaze noticeably more fluid where it was hit directly by flame in the firing.

Watering pot 7" high (178mm). Ash glazes.

Now that I have a little more space on the shelves in my studio, I can glaze more pots for my next wood firing!