Art by Fuzzy

Pottery, Photography, Design - Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz

Bisque Fire in Progress

ready to bisque fire

ready to bisque fire

The kiln is on and was at 104F when I checked a few minutes ago.  I’m bisque firing a load of mugs, bowls, vases, and a few other items.  I’ve been busy the last two weeks trying to get everything thrown, assembled and dried so I can get it fired today.  Next weekend I hope to glaze fire so I can have a good selection of Christmas presents to choose from.

clay tools

clay tools

My school was canceled last Monday so I had a chance to do some online shopping at the clay supply stores.  Clay-King sent me a $5 off coupon in their email newsletter and they had glazes on sale so I decided to go with them.  I ordered a few small tools, a pint of clear glaze, some kiln posts, and a 10lb. bag of Saturated Iron dry glaze mix.  Everything except the dry glaze powder was at my house on Wednesday (only 2 days!) and the dry mix ships direct from the factory so it will arrive separately.

Stoneware Mugs and Bowls

I glaze fired a number of pieces two weekends ago.  Mostly mugs with a few bowls of different sizes.  I used Pam’s Blue on most of the work since I still have half a bucket left.  It came out as a blue-green on most of the pieces.  I put it over Coyote Red Gold on the inside of one bowl and it made a spectacular flowing combination.  I also dripped some Red Gold on the Pam’s Blue platter and got some interesting white streaks.  I have another toothbrush holder prototype which seems to work okay and the last pair of “word mugs” are finally finished.

Missing from the pictures are a tea mug that was already sold and a few mugs that were  re-fired to fix some glaze defects from a previous glaze firing.

I’m hoping to get some more items made before Christmas.  A lot of wheel thrown things are planned and I might try some bigger slab platters.

Summer Pottery – Mugs, Vases, Bowls

I glaze fired a number of items way back in July.  Then I got busy doing other projects like making a backdrop for photographing ceramics, redesigning a website, and getting settled into a new school.  Finally, you can see the finished pieces from that summer glaze fire below.  I haven’t really been in the clay studio much since then but I’ve got some ideas rolling around in my head for the next time I get some time at the wheel.

All items are glaze fired to cone 6 and are either Warm Brown Stoneware from Amaco or Speckled Stoneware by Laguna.

June Glaze Fire Results

Last month I glaze fired close to 20 pieces after mixing some glaze from dry powder.  The Pam’s Blue that I mixed turned out more blue-green instead of the blue-gray that I got from the pre-mixed pint.  It might be applied a little thin but I still like the result.  I got to test a few new glazes such as Espresso Bean and Saturated Iron by Coyote and Frosted Turquoise and Iron Lustre by Amaco.  Some of them turned out nicely.  Most of the items were functional ware: mugs, bowls, etc.

I finally got all the pieces photographed about a week ago and I finished cropping and sizing the photos last night.  Now, as I’m uploading these pictures the kiln is cranked up and bisque firing some of the stuff that I’ve thrown recently.   My wife wanted a set of bowls with handles, I’ve got a set of four mugs, there are some vases and other tall forms and  a few lidded vessels.

Pottery Sale / Bisque Fire

I’m finally getting a chance to bisque fire all the stuff I made over spring break.  The kiln is on and firing!  I noticed as I was loading the kiln that I was rapidly running out of shelf space.  I decided to haul a bunch of my finished pieces to Ligonier for an “End of the School Year/Clean off the Shelves” Pottery Sale.  There was a really good response and out of the twenty-some pieces that I took in I only brought back four.  I consider most of the pieces I sold “my experimental work” as I was mostly trying glazes and different forms.  A few people requested items of a certain shape or glaze color for next time.  Now that I’m officially on summer break I plan to spend a good amount of time in the clay studio.  I’m going to head down to the hardware store to get a good respirator and one of those long mixers that can be attached to a drill.  Then I’ll be ready to mix up some Pam’s Blue glaze.  I’ve got about 3 weeks left of my class at IUSB but when I’m not in class or doing homework I hope to be glazing the bisque pieces and throwing some new items.