Today the situation has improved. I am now a mere 2.6 light-years from the phone, but it is still a long way to shout.
Look it up.
Anyway, today I met with Jocelyn, if you can call it that - her room is the ceramics studio, so i have to go there anyway, and we talk no matter what day it is, I guess a little more in-depth on meeting days, but not by much. I just keep going along and going along, you know.
I tried to find copper carbonate in the chemicals cabinet (about which I have been reading, it is good for introducing rich red colors in the pit) but the best I could do was iron oxide, so if I want copper carbonate I may have to order it, or I can see about using the iron oxide instead (need research there), or I can scratch the whole thing and do salt and soda, which I intend to use anyway.
More advances in Art: I am also going to get a bunch of leaves and soak them in salt water so they approximate seaweed, and wrap some of the pots in them. This may also help reduce hazardous emissions, because salt as everyone knows is NaCl, and dissociates at high temperatures, and the sodium forms a sort of glaze and the chlorine is emitted as hydrochloric acid in gas form, how unpleasant. I don't think my kiln will get hot enough for this to be a real problem but I'm going to do the fake-seaweed thing anyway. And I'm going to do a baking soda wash before firing. Although evidently if you heat baking soda in the microwave it actually liquefies and you can just paint it on there, but I don't have a microwave. (I know, right?) I'll think about doing it in a saucepan but I think the soda and water mixture would work just as well.
Also today I burnished three pieces and after a considerable amount of trial and error I have hit upon the perfect method for doing so: Burnish perfectly vertically with spoon, turn 90 degrees and burnish in circles around the circumference with the spoon, then put your hand in a plastic bag, dip it in vegetable oil, and buff. Shiny. (That is an extremely clever pun, as anyone who has seen Firefly will know. I am on a science fiction jag today. If you haven't figured it out, my cryptic opening sentence is Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.)
Jocelyn wishes me to make a really big piece, which I am capable of doing, but I am afraid it might crack in the kiln. Her solution is to stuff the piece with newspaper prior to firing so it won't collapse in on itself. I like this idea so much I think I shall apply it to all my pieces, even the wee ones. Plus the newspaper will combust and smoke the inside of the pieces black, which I like, hoping it will contrast with the more colorful outsides.
Look it up.
Anyway, today I met with Jocelyn, if you can call it that - her room is the ceramics studio, so i have to go there anyway, and we talk no matter what day it is, I guess a little more in-depth on meeting days, but not by much. I just keep going along and going along, you know.
I tried to find copper carbonate in the chemicals cabinet (about which I have been reading, it is good for introducing rich red colors in the pit) but the best I could do was iron oxide, so if I want copper carbonate I may have to order it, or I can see about using the iron oxide instead (need research there), or I can scratch the whole thing and do salt and soda, which I intend to use anyway.
More advances in Art: I am also going to get a bunch of leaves and soak them in salt water so they approximate seaweed, and wrap some of the pots in them. This may also help reduce hazardous emissions, because salt as everyone knows is NaCl, and dissociates at high temperatures, and the sodium forms a sort of glaze and the chlorine is emitted as hydrochloric acid in gas form, how unpleasant. I don't think my kiln will get hot enough for this to be a real problem but I'm going to do the fake-seaweed thing anyway. And I'm going to do a baking soda wash before firing. Although evidently if you heat baking soda in the microwave it actually liquefies and you can just paint it on there, but I don't have a microwave. (I know, right?) I'll think about doing it in a saucepan but I think the soda and water mixture would work just as well.
Also today I burnished three pieces and after a considerable amount of trial and error I have hit upon the perfect method for doing so: Burnish perfectly vertically with spoon, turn 90 degrees and burnish in circles around the circumference with the spoon, then put your hand in a plastic bag, dip it in vegetable oil, and buff. Shiny. (That is an extremely clever pun, as anyone who has seen Firefly will know. I am on a science fiction jag today. If you haven't figured it out, my cryptic opening sentence is Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.)
Jocelyn wishes me to make a really big piece, which I am capable of doing, but I am afraid it might crack in the kiln. Her solution is to stuff the piece with newspaper prior to firing so it won't collapse in on itself. I like this idea so much I think I shall apply it to all my pieces, even the wee ones. Plus the newspaper will combust and smoke the inside of the pieces black, which I like, hoping it will contrast with the more colorful outsides.
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