So out of the kiln yesterday, came these 2 lovelies:
The one on the left is glazed white, and the one on the right is glazed with a transparent zirconium glaze. They're not quite stackable...
Well, with a little jigging you could maybe stack them in threes. But right now I can't try it because I've only got these two! Six more are coming out of the kiln tomorrow morning, ready to be glazed. I am still so in love with my subtle fluting on this cup, producing a gorgeous octagonal rim.
Here's the view from bottom up, showing the foot ring:
And most important of all- the steampunk test! Can an engineer in gloves use the handle on this cup? I put on the heatproof kiln glove to find out.
The answer was- just about. These are some crazy big stiff gloves though. With a slightly more flexible, tighter fitting glove, I would have been able to fit two fingers into the handle, I'm sure.
I am happy with these two cups, but there is definitely room for improvement. Firstly, the glaze was applied in a hurry by dipping, and ended up plastered on thick and with runs and bumps. This has produced a shoddy finish that ideally will need to be fixed (I can re-glaze these two if I have time/effort). The next 6 cups will be sprayed to avoid that problem.
I like the transparent glaze best, because I love the warmth of the natural cream clay body, but this means I need to be more careful with fettling the pieces before firing, because you can still just about see the seam lines, and it bothers me. I would also like to experiment with colour a bit. There's an amazing yellow glaze mixed up in the studio, and I think this cup would look great with a yellow exterior and a white interior. Almost like a beautiful daffodil.
The one on the left is glazed white, and the one on the right is glazed with a transparent zirconium glaze. They're not quite stackable...
Here's the view from bottom up, showing the foot ring:
And most important of all- the steampunk test! Can an engineer in gloves use the handle on this cup? I put on the heatproof kiln glove to find out.
The answer was- just about. These are some crazy big stiff gloves though. With a slightly more flexible, tighter fitting glove, I would have been able to fit two fingers into the handle, I'm sure.
I am happy with these two cups, but there is definitely room for improvement. Firstly, the glaze was applied in a hurry by dipping, and ended up plastered on thick and with runs and bumps. This has produced a shoddy finish that ideally will need to be fixed (I can re-glaze these two if I have time/effort). The next 6 cups will be sprayed to avoid that problem.
I like the transparent glaze best, because I love the warmth of the natural cream clay body, but this means I need to be more careful with fettling the pieces before firing, because you can still just about see the seam lines, and it bothers me. I would also like to experiment with colour a bit. There's an amazing yellow glaze mixed up in the studio, and I think this cup would look great with a yellow exterior and a white interior. Almost like a beautiful daffodil.
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