Cooking and Clay: Cone 10 or Gas Kiln Firing

I thought I was gonna make a bunch of coupe plates from the bag of Coleman porcelain I bought at Clay Planet, but was stupidly not aware of the timeline. I made one plate that’s warped though maybe it’ll come out flat from the final firing. And so last minute before the bisque firing of the Cone 10 greenware, I made a mug, a bud vase, and jewelry trinkets.                                     

I forgot to borrow Meral's cobalt oxide, and she was away camping. I knew I wouldn't have been able to find that jar in her studio, and so I settled for the blue underglazes I had on hand.

I borrowed Zan's electric blue, but it didn't differ that much from my medium blue. I really need to get a marine blue underglaze the next time I'm at a ceramic store. At ceramics club on Wednesday, I was persuaded to mix up a Coleman Red glaze. We didn't have enough Gerstley Borate, but Zan was able to borrow it from the Skyline College ceramics program. 

I am so worried that I doubled the portion of the EPK or Edgar Plastic Kaolin. I am hoping it will look more like Flambe rather than Coleman Red.

But I went ahead and glazed my bud vase with the glaze I mixed plus Celadon Blue and left part of the shoulder of unglazed because I do like the look of raw fired Coleman porcelain.

Whew was that a long day after running around a lot in my library, and so I made a taco salad when I got home. A literal taco salad as in I had leftover chicken enchilada and cheddar tacos and leftover frijoles, which I put atop a bed of chopped lettuce, guacamole, sour cream and verde salsa.

I had made the ceramic dishes and pendants on a Saturday to be ready for a bisque fire on Monday. I wanted to layer shards of glass in the jewelry plates and in the recesses of the pendants. I think I glazed the flat pendants in the new Coleman Red as well as Blue Celadon which I had also rimmed some flat round jewelry dishes also to be layered with glass. For the grandnieces flower jewelry dishes I merely inscribed with text of their names which I under glazed in black velvet and then dipped in clear gloss. 

Maybe I'll string the flower pendants on a leather thong or even make some other pendants with frost porcelain--I plan on getting another bag. And then it was Friday! The day of firing up the gas kiln. 

I knew Zan was going in early to start that Cone 10 fire, and so I had baked her spanakopita the night before to give her breakfast. The day before, she loaded the gas kiln.

She said not to post a pic of the gas kiln as she said it was such a bad load--too much space above some of the ceramic pieces. Work was so busy, and so I popped in only on the morning. I barely had time to eat my lunch of broccoli cheddar soup and managed to push out the cart of brand new summer books for a teen read program at the local public library.

I stopped at the supermarket to buy salmon to grill for dinner and put on top of leftover pea puree, but I so wanted sushi.

I also made a tangerine margarita. Whew, it was a busy but fun clay and cooking week though I'm still looking forward to clay on this Saturday morning. I saw this pic of these beautiful quilted potholders, which I plan to sew--but check out the speckled clay bowl and those triangles!

Definite inspo for Saturday Clay.