Spring...almost

Some wierd light

its good to take a break and wander about taking photos.

Some nearby terracotta clay, straight out of the ground, then pug milled little stones and all for a natural textured body .I hope to coil some large pots with this local clay in the upcoming spring and warmer weather.

Coil Master

Some people score and slurry between coils, others use no slurry at all.Whatever works for the individual. here's a guy that's got it sorted, wheel or no wheel.

Cold As Clay

More snow, another day off work. Not only was it a one in a hundred year event (the same thing happend three weeks ago) this front came with stronger gale force winds ,big seas ,blizzards etc.
As for potting, its a good time to do a bit of maintanence, tests , some coiling or sculpture maybe but just too cold for throwing.

I wasnt going to work or anywhere till i spent a couple of hours on the chainsaw, a great way to keep warm.

Deconstruction: Old wheel in need of a rebuild. This time itll be plywood instead of custom wood that swells with water contact.(sigh)

Extruding Test Tiles

To speed things up a little, I made a wooden dye for my pug mill for extruding test tiles.And in less than the time it took to clean it, I had about 70 southstone tiles cut and drying. I am planing 2 consecutive firings,both using straight canola oil, one in oxidation the following in reduction with 30 glazes on 2 stoneware bodies white and buff.About 60 tests in each firing in all.
I have been blogging for 1 year now, its made a great visual diary and it definitely helps steer a course.Mainly this year I have extensively tested a  batch of glaze materials, prepared a terracotta clay body,that will be a year old by the spring, building and firing kilns and... pottery stuff in general. Its been good times.

T shaped extruder dye, made out of plywood and placed inside the nozzle of a small home made pug mill.

Rapid fire test tiles.

Not a bad winters day. 12 degrees cel. approx.

Firing a minigama kiln.These wee kilns really rock and use the same principles as bigger kilns.A good way to spend an afternoon. Looking forward to more of this and have always wanted to scale one of these up.

Orange and black.Now that's an atmosphere.