End of Glaze Day 3. Two of those days were with a student. Everything was very careful and time consuming as this was a tutorial. She has ideas, and the will to execute them. I have the will to facilitate!
The amount of mopping up, as ever, is prodigious, even though she is the neatest glazer I have ever seen. The mess was mine. I am not neat. I pour the glaze, drip it, brush it; I splash it although I try not to.
Number of fresh batches of glaze weighed out, put together and sieved 3x each in preparation last week: 3. (Total number of glazes in the studio: 6.) Number of pairs of rubber gloves I went through in three days: 8. Number of finger cots (you know what those are? Super useful for people with beat-up fingers) to protect thumb cuts: 16. Number of sponging forays around the glaze buckets on the floor: eleventy-seven, probably. (Nearly as good as lunges and squats at the gym.) Number of towel and glaze-clothing laundries: two. Dried glaze spatter vacuum efforts: 2. Number of tired, fairly dirty and unquestionably sweaty potters: 1. But I'm kind of happy, too. The kiln is loaded and firing, and will fire through the night. Soon I'll have a few more pieces for the gallery/website.
My student wanted to do blue brushwork on top of the glaze on a couple of pots, so I made a brushing mix for her. I had the recipe for it for over a year, wanting to try it but never getting to it. (Got it from one of Simon Leach's videos. *Recipe below.) I weighed it out and mixed it up in about 5 minutes. A student is a good challenge. I am to have two more students before long, for handbuilding. More excellent challenges, forthwith!
Number of pots of mine in this kiln: 3 open honey dishes with 3 matching plates, one goblet with matching saucer, two nice vegetable-serving bowls, 2 oblong serving trays, and a whole bunch of student work, carefully glazed.
The load is firing now in my electric kiln. The studio is blessedly, unusually clean.
(*Simon's Blue On-glaze Brushing Stuff
25% cobalt oxide
25% red iron oxide
25% manganese dioxide
25% crushed dried porcelain
water to mix)