Test Tiles

This is a picture of my hard working little kiln. The inside dimensions are about 2 cubic feet. It is sold as a test kiln or jewelry kiln for doing pewter or glass. 2 cubic feet doesn't hold a lot, on this day it was holding 1 pot. The thing I like about this picture is that you can see the front wheel of my motorcycle reflected in the side.The bisque firing of the plant pot turned out well on Sunday, by well I mean the pot didn't crack.

My temperature gauge ( the box hanging off the side there) wasn't working properly for the first three hours. The Other One fixed it by cleaning the contacts on the wires. And I couldn't see the cone in the kiln because the pot was behind it and was glowing at the same temperature (of course). I usually try to leave a clear space behind the cone, so that the elements on the other side of the kiln outline it, and I can see it bend. The pot itself just fits inside the kiln with only and inch around the circumference so it completely blocked the brighter glow of the elements. Consequently I over-fired the kiln a bit. The (now working) temperature gauge read about 15 degrees hotter than 1860 for about 30 minutes. Not sure how this will affect the final result.
Today I made test tiles of various glazes I mixed up. I don't custom make my own glazes because I don't have enough room in my teeny studio to keep all the chemical ingredients that go into glazes. And let's face it I don't really know what I'm doing most of the time and this is one bit of the process I can experiment with later. So mixing up glazes for me means opening the pre-mixed bag of ingredients from the supplier and adding water. It does take a long time though because I have to sieve it through a very fine mesh to get the lumps out. I mixed up a mossy green, a speckled cinnamon that looks more like oatmeal to me, and a clear glaze today. The dark blue I already had mixed earlier for the bathroom tiles. The reason there are so many more tiles in the picture, is that you can combine different colours in layers for different effects, and blue on green will look different than green on blue. You may notice that none of these tiles look like they are green or blue, but after they are fired they go a completely different colour. All with the magic of chemistry I don't begin to understand. Also, I have 2 different clay bodies that I use, and the glazes will look different on them, so essentially 4 colours turns into many possible combinations. I also have some underglaze paint like they use at those paint your own pottery places, so some of the glazes are used with them underneath, just in case it turns out interesting. I suck at underglazing, but if you want to see a delicious version, check out Lucky Rabbit Pottery from Annapolis Royal.
Here is a close up of the plant pot as it came out of the bisque firing. You can just barely see the fine imprint of leaves on the surface. They may not show up at all when it is finished.