Kiln unloading 01/15/26

Okay, the mural is put together, so I'm just going to show you what it looks like as one piece. This is the government wharf down in West Dublin with a little artistic license. Morning, it's January 9th, so I'm going to unpack this kiln. It's a Cone 6 oxidation in a bailey kiln, and it should be one of the first firings of 2026. I can't believe it's already the 9th of January, but anyway, let's look at it. The excitement of a kiln opening. Okay, I've been trying to catch up on stuff that I'd basically sold last year that I didn't have anything left, so I did a bunch of garlic keepers, sugar and butter dishes, and that's how I fire my lids on stilts, and I just have to use a little Dremel to knock away the sharp points where the stilts touch on the inside. It's hard to see there, I guess, but there's actually a place where they actually hold up. Maybe that's better light. Oh yes, you can see it. I like doing the blue on the inside, it's quite a nice compliment to what's on the outside too, and this is tenmoku gold. Look how it does the, um, on the top where the blue is affecting the color, I guess, and then on the bottom part is where it's just straight tenmoku gold. Interesting the way the glaze affected by that little bit of blue there with oatmeal that must be running into it, but you can see how the chattering affects it there. And there's another one here. Any other colors? We've got some chun green ones here. There's some little bases for these. I'm not sure if they're in this firing or not. Chun green with variated blue and oatmeal over the top there as well. I've been working on color schemes for display. I box everything up this time of the year so that they don't get open till later in the year, but I'm color coding every box, so when I open a box it means that I've got everything inside that will look good together on the display. This is the slot green glaze, which is actually working really good. It's just all my waste glaze that I sponge and it lands in the bottom of a little container and basically pour the water off and you've got all the slurry from wiping the glaze off pieces. I throw it into a bucket and it generally comes out green. I don't waste it. I just use it and try and experiment with it. At the moment, especially with Strontium Crystal Magic, it's working really good. Really beautiful blue there. I posted all the glaze recipes in a video again. Basically, if you're looking for my recipes throughout the year, just look in the video kiln unloadings in January and you'll see them. That's when I'll post the glaze recipes in future. This one does have Strontium Crystal Magic on it. It mattes the glaze, which I really like. Then you've got the gloss going to the matte. I think that's a nice effect. All these are lids for little jar gollet keepers inside. Next lay down, we do have the jars that the lids will work on. This one was a slot green with Strontium Crystal Magic and I dip the bottom in the blue. That's something I haven't done before because I don't like using blue on the bottom of pieces, but I wanted to try it and it looks like it works really good. Where's the lid? There we go. Small garlic keepers. Of course, you can never reproduce that exactly because it's still all the slot glazes that I have just ended up poured together. I might have like a six gallon bucket of it at the moment, which is why I decided I would try using it this year. Matte turquoise, very good with an oatmeal and it doesn't look like it has Strontium Crystal Magic. Oh, maybe it does. Just at the rim there, I can see some mattness. Same again. Lids are fitting perfectly. I should be more confident about this now because I've really been able to control the running with the firing profile. So next time I can glaze a little further down with the Strontium Crystal Magic because I only did it to there and it doesn't run at all when you're in this firing shape because it's perfect. You get the mattness without the runs unless you glaze much lower down. Same with the purple here. Actually, that doesn't have any Strontium Crystal Magic. That's very good. It blew an little bit of purple. Let's do that. Yeah, a Charlie Green one. No Strontium Crystal Magic. It did run a lot though because it blocked up a few of the holes. I had one there. Well, like I said, most of them are open. This one is Charlie Green again. Yeah, that's a blue one. I'll have to do that after because I can't see it. Oh, look at this. Blue, green, copper, red. It's pretty. Yeah, it's very thin there. You can even see the chattering through the glaze a little bit because it has tin in it so it's a slightly opaque film. And I don't have to look for that one either. And then we can have a blue. Yes, I do have a blue. And there is Strontium Crystal Magic on this one as you can see with the runs. So with the blue, I do have to be a little careful because it can be dramatic with the runs. But it's really nice when it does it. And now we've got some more sugar. Sorry, some more butter dishes. We don't like blue with Strontium Crystal Magic but I'll wait for the lids. Here's another Slot Green. Really pretty green. Very goody blue oatmeal with Strontium Crystal Magic on that top half there. More blue, green, copper, red. And another blue, green, copper, red. The stilts all came out really easily on that one. I'm always surprised they don't crush the pins but they don't. And if they bend a little bit I just straighten them. But the chattering is totally gone on that one. You can see where there's a little edge of it there. Because I'm doing blue, green, copper, red, Strontium Crystal Magic, then blue, green, copper, red, then very goody blue, and then oatmeal. So that's why you're getting such a thick area over the chattering, it disappears. And let's see, we've got some jars so I can get the lids to match. That one's hard to get off. Slot Green again, then Strontium Crystal Magic and very goody blue and oatmeal. Purple also here. Which one is which? I think that one. No, that's the other one then. This one. I'm trying to make my lids all the same size but there's always a little variation. So this must be the other one. Yep. Actually that's still a little tight. I left the glaze on the... I should have checked it. But it fits, it's just a bit tight. Okay, I just figured it out. I actually had the wrong lid on a different one. So this is that one. And then one more Chutney Green. And I don't have the lid out for that one yet. The rest we do, it's in here. There you go. That's a pretty bowl. I just did a video on putting handles on things. This is what I call the butterfly handle, but matte turquoise, very goody blue and oatmeal. And a lot... there's no sharpness to it, but there's a lot of little pinholes that actually started melting over that they need a longer soak. And because of the Strontium Crystal Magic, I'm not even doing any soak at temperature. When I stir this glaze up, you often get some foam in the top of the glaze when you dip it in. Then those little bubbles of foam burst and that's what gives you that. So I'm trying to figure out how I stir it up and then let the bubbles burst, but by then the glaze is settling a bit. This is another one of those purples I've been doing quite a bit of. Hopefully the glaze looks on the top there. Now I've got some knitting balls. Timlico Gold, Bright Blue. Did I have any oatmeal? No, it's just Bright Blue down there. And I did the oatmeal on the top part. Oh, look at the inside. Really pretty. It's another Slot Green, which actually shows the chattering through quite a bit. The knitting balls don't sell fast, but every so often I notice I've sold them all, so I start knitting them again. This is the Matte Turquoise over Red Clay, so it's much duller in appearance. I'm very good at oatmeal. There's a large knitting community in our area. Slot Green again, or it could be Shun Green over Red Clay, which would make it look dark. I'm very good at blue oatmeal as well. That's that level. It looks like the bottoms of the butter dishes are not in this firing. Look how bright blue that is. Timlico Gold, Bright Blue on the bottom, and then oatmeal on the top of it. That's really pretty. And that's a lid for this. Now I can see all the bases. I haven't even put them in the kiln yet. Okay, so we've got some... These were more handle pieces I was doing to play with handles, and I didn't like this one at all, which is what stimulated me to do some exploring with handles. I mean, they work, but I just didn't think they'd do anything for the pot. Just like lobs of clay stuck on the edge. This one was a little better, I thought, as far as the handle, because it just gives you something solid. It's a bit thicker, so you can grip it easier. Shun Green, very good at oatmeal. Wow. This probably doesn't give it justice looking at the picture. It's so bright. Timlico Gold with Bright Blue and oatmeal dipped on the rim, and then I put some on the ends. I put it in the glaze and swished it around at the bottom as well, and it did that. Very amazing. It's hard to sign anything like these, so I actually signed a little plate that goes under them. Oh, and the handle turned out much nicer on this one, I think. And then Purple, very good at oatmeal again, and the same type of handle on that one. I think that handle works nice here. It just doesn't get knocked off. Somebody won't be coming back saying, I broke my pot. That wash, I'm going to sand that off a little bit. The Purple shows the chattering really nice, and Bright Blue over Dark Red Clay. This one had some strontium crystal magic at the top, by the look of it, and the inside is nice again. Oh, look, it dripped. Actually, there's some on the kiln shelf I can see, so it dripped off that little bit there, but it didn't block up the hole. And that's that kiln. Okay, these are all the bases from the butter dishes and colanders earlier in this video. So I won't go individually because they just match up. So when I do a butter dish, I like to put it in a rim so you can scrape the knife on it, and then the dome goes over the top. Around it. And when I'm doing the little colander things, I just make a tiny little clay to catch a little bit of water. The next layer down is the same, so this is how it works. So you can take this, get your butter, and then scrape the knife on the edge. Customers seem to really appreciate that for convenience. Okay, the next layer down looks much more interesting. So we've got a nice contrast here between... Let me know if you, you know, don't like this black trim, because I usually use the white, but I just started trying some black. And actually, what I did with these, and it didn't work as nicely, is I signed with a ballpoint pen, and it actually doesn't do as nicely as a sharp pen, so I'll go back to using a pen to sign the bottoms of those. It was just a pen, I just thought, well, let's try a ballpoint pen and see how it works. And you can see it, but it's just not as nice. Anyway, these two are my new yellow with apple green on the rim, and then basically the Strontium Crystal Magic is in the upper half. And so, let me know what you think. Black or white bottoms? I think I'm going back to liking the white. But who knows? There's two more of those. And the signature thing, it's still there, but it was so much nicer when I used a sharp pen. Just a pen tool from throwing on the wheel. It's now usable. But the stripes are really pretty on these. And then the blue, that is very pretty. Wow, it's so even, isn't it? I'm going to soak at peak temperature on these. I just take it to 22, 25, and then let it drop naturally to 1900, and then I do a slow cool from that point on. That's controlling the Strontium Crystal Magic perfectly. I haven't tried any iron glazed pieces with Strontium Crystal Magic over, because iron flux is so much more. But these regular pieces are just really nice. And then the other one I was trying to duplicate, which I think I've done it, is this yellow dotting, where the purple is overlapping the Strontium Crystal Magic, we get these little yellow dots in the glaze. And that's the matte purple, Variegated Blue and Oatmeal over the top. Strontium Crystal Magic is applied first. More purples, more blues, and this is a Chun. So this one, same basic idea with Strontium Crystal Magic, and then the Chun, and then the Variegated Blue and Oatmeal. And the same again there. And then one of the ones I did from the handle video, I was playing around with handles on these little chip and dips. I still plan on doing one where there's a loose ball, but I forgot because I put grooves for the spiral in the center, and that would not work with the ball trying to stick with the glaze, I don't think, as well. So I'm going to do some with a flat base. But that's very pretty with the Strontium Crystal Magic. Let's give you a close-up. The quality of shiny versus matte and semi-matte. Very pretty. Okay, I think I'm in love with this piece. That is so pretty. Oh yeah, the back is nice too. So this was Strontium Crystal Magic poured, actually, over the outer upper half, up above there, and then on the inside I poured it going down that way. And then I dipped the whole ball in yellow, and then I dabbed my Apple Green in a ring all the way around there, and I even dabbed a little bit right on the edge of the ball up there as well, which has faded in completely. But it has an effect, obviously. But that is very pretty. And gosh, I don't know, I know how to do it again. I better make sure I take a picture of this one, because I think that looks such a happy bowl for the summer months. And then we've got, I tried to reproduce the look that I got from the technical goal, where I was using my bright blue on the upper half with oatmeal on the rim, and the black on the bottom, and this does not have any Strontium Crystal Magic. But I managed to duplicate this about eight times in here, seven or eight times anyway, so this is very pretty. Okay, we have another one here, similarly to the bowl, with the green on it. This one I'm liking a little less. I think the yellow was thicker down there. I poured some in and just swished it around until it's sort of absorbed in, and I don't like it as much as the other one, so I probably should have maybe brushed, I think maybe I put some green in there, and that's what doesn't, it makes the green, the yellow look a bit more dirty. But it's nice enough, I guess. But got some nice colour variations in the rim, but I just feel like the green, I'm not happy about the centre. Okay, well this one I was not going to videotape because there's some similar pieces, but I thought because of the handle video I just did recently, I'd show you these because the handles worked out pretty nice on them. You know, I'm just trying to come up with some different handle designs, but I like the way that one ran down the handle there. That's actually the slop green glaze, which I really like, and I'm hoping I didn't spoil it, but we'll see. There's another one of those handles, different application. This was applied on the surface on the inside rather than over the outside as well, so is the other one just as well, and then pushed the finger inside and just kind of pushed up to round it off a bit. This one was similarly applied but wasn't pushed up as much, and it sticks out more so there's more vulnerability to this piece. Function versus aesthetic, and this one was applied on the outside and then basically supported with a little button thing on the inside as well. They're all pretty nice, they all have a little tray underneath them as well when they're displayed, and then I just have the butter dishes coming out, which I think we saw earlier in this video. Purple, variegated blue and oatmeal, matte turquoise, variegated blue and oatmeal. That's really pretty, the way it does that sort of deep matte blue up there. This is one with some strontium crystal magic applied on the rim with bright blue, variegated blue and oatmeal. So there's also a little brown line which we're getting where the run finishes. There's always that little orangey brown line which is kind of a nice feature. This is tenmoku gold with black, so black on the bottom, tenmoku gold, and then variegated blue on the rim, and that I've never done before, and that's why I didn't know what it was, but I will again. That looks really nice. I've discovered a new combo. I don't know, black is very popular at the moment, and I'm kind of surprised because if the news is bleak, I'm looking at bright colors, but I like that. This is the color, the blue green copper red, which was very popular about two, three years ago, and it's less so now, but I still do it because it's a light. It lifts the happiness mode feeling in the studio and the gallery, I think, so I kind of like that, and that one has a handle applied inside and outside. This is the first one I did, I think, when I was doing that video on handles, and it was a little heavy, I thought, but it actually, you know, looks okay now. Then I have a bunch of mugs which I think we've seen before. Let's make sure. This is, a little bit of black came off the, there's no chip, it's just where the black came off. I hate that when it happens. Anyway, I think this is my bright blue with the blue green copper red underneath, which I don't do this combo very much, but I decided to try it again, and it's quite nice. That black there, I'll have to dab and re-fire that one for that reason. This is the Chun Green variegated blue and oatmeal over, without any strontium crystal magic on that one, and this is the blue green copper red with variegated blue and oatmeal as well. So, I usually do it like this, but I just tried this one with the bright blue instead of variegated blue, and that's the difference. Just a few more pieces in here. Chun Green, this one had strontium crystal magic on it, which is why we get those huge runs. It's a really pretty bowl. Wow, I just felt the runs on the outside, look at that. They're very three-dimensional. This is another slop green glaze piece. I am so hoping that this glaze hasn't been changed by me, but I think this is what happened after I changed it, so I think we're still good. And this is the handle that I prefer on my berry bowls, because it isn't vulnerable to being knocked off easily. That's a pretty piece too. A peaceful green piece. And this is another one of the Tenmaku Gold with black, and I am really going to do some mugs like this as well. That is very pretty. Variegated blue and oatmeal over the Tenmaku Gold, and I'm also going to try the bright blue. There's a couple of mugs. This one is Chun Green, and I needed to stir it up more because it's a little dry, but then the purple. Oh, I did do a mug like the black. Okay, this is like the berry bowl. Boy, is that pretty. I'll be doing more for the black, and that's my signature not signing up well with the ballpoint pen again. And then this one is Tenmaku Gold with bright blue instead of this one with variegated blue, so that's the difference there. Okay, this is the last part of this video that I'll do, but it has some interesting new tests. I've been swapping over to 519S, which is a speckled clay which has grog in it. It's very subtly speckled, it's white grog, but it has affected the glazes, and I've been noticing things that are slightly different, like things are lighter in colour, and I wondered what it was, and then I realised that's right, so I think that's important because the Foucault white has been coming out, and I thought it was almost under-fired, but it's just that the speckle in the actual clay, which is silica I'm guessing, silica grog, is actually absorbing, or not that much, but absorbing around the little specks, and giving it a sort of textural surface, and if I want to get back to a really glossy, I'll have to thicken the glaze up a little bit to get in on this, but it came out very white, as you can see, so the glaze is almost boring, whereas on the other clay it was actually very interesting. However, said that, this is also the actual speckled clay with Foucault white, and the strontium crystal magic is underneath, and look how we got an orange, so that's totally new. I had an orange before from Foucault white by adding iron ochre, yellow iron oxide, and I got an orange, but I can get it again now just by putting the strontium crystal magic underneath, and then dipping Foucault white over the top, and we're back to getting an orange, which is a new, you know, gives me some added colour in my palette. Now, it didn't do anything to the tenmiku gold with bright blue and opium over the top, that looks totally the same, so no big difference there, it's still beautiful. The blue-green-copper-red, it actually didn't change much either, and that's got bright blue and opium over the top as well with strontium crystal magic underneath, and we get those runs. In fact, I'm thinking the runs aren't quite as strong as they were with the regular clay, but it's still really nice, so it didn't affect that one much. There's another blue-green-copper-red, same type of thing with some runs, so no big deal there, so that's fine to keep going with. This one is another tenmiku gold with very good blue and oatmeal, and that pretty much looks the same too, so I'm happy with that. So basically, I'm happy with all of these at the moment, but it has been an interesting change. This is chun-green, and this also did a slightly satin stipple effect, so that has changed, the chun-green, but look at the variegated with oatmeal over the top, really nice. So, I don't know where that other one came from, but probably from dipping the glaze. Anyway, so that one changed a little, so I just started chun-green, and also focal white might have to be dipped a little thicker. Okay, we've got some beautiful tankards in here, but look at this, and this is very pretty. I decided to use my black with some variegated blue in the center, and then tenmiku gold, and I think it was, I'm guessing it was regular bright blue plus oatmeal on the rim. Look at the outside, really pretty. I think that's really nice. I could see lots of potential with that if I didn't just pour evenly, doing some random pours. That could be really attractive, and then what about the tankards? Now, this is all using the 519 S2, and there's the chun-green. How about that for a surprise? That is much darker, and it's back to being glossy, so I'm not sure what the deal is there. Chun-green applied quite thick, because it's dark. That's the difference, and this one, what do I have here? I'm not sure which glaze base is underneath there, because it doesn't look like my mouse gray. It doesn't look like my bright blue. Maybe this is the the new blue that I've been playing with, but it's really pretty, a nice gray, actually really pretty. All right, chun-green again, with the blues over the top. There's some new color combinations here, and here is my green, that is my new slop green mixed with my fake ash glaze, and that's really turning out nice now. I like that a lot. It's a really nice subtle green, very good with an oatmeal over the top, and I do think that I had strontium crystal magic on these as well, and I wouldn't swear by that. Yes, I did, because it's gone matte there. Here is another same glaze. That's my new green. I got two glazes that weren't working very well. I mixed them together, and now it's working good, and that's pure luck. No knowledge there, but look at the runs. That's to say that's a good omen for 2026. The world will all be peaceful this year. Isn't that nice? And there's another gray-blue. That's very interesting. I am gonna have to figure that one out, because that's nice, but not sure whether it's my bright blue doing that or not. Can't imagine it is. But what else do we have that would do that? I have no idea. It's like a pale gray-blue, which is really nice, and I've got a lot of it. If it's my bright blue, because I mixed two glazes together in that, and here's the one, the new one, one of my faves for this year, I think, is the tenmiku gold. It's worked with a black base. It's working really nice. Okay, here's another one, like the one in the previous level, where I didn't do it quite as evenly. So you can see we could play with this a lot and get some really nice colors. So I'm just pouring the glazes on these pieces. Variegated blue and oatmeal over the top of tenmiku gold, and then black at the bottom. It could be the bright blue instead of variegated blue poured at the rim, but I'll have to play with that. But it's not bright blue. It doesn't show a lot of blue, so that's why I think it's variegated blue. And there we go, the winter tankards, and beautiful. I don't know whether it's bright blue here. I think it's bright blue rather than variegated blue on these pieces, but it was just not enough blue. But the rest of it is very, very, very pretty. Then I did some basic Icelandic ones, which this color was selling really well, and then it sort of slowed down. So I think that I would probably put the variegated blue on the rim of these next time, because I like that version too. And then we have another tenmiku gold, and the last one for this video. Oh, not so great. Just a brown. I was testing my Randy's Red over this white speckle, which it never usually likes to be over a white clay. It likes to be over a red stoneware clay, and then it works good. But white clay is usually brown, and sort of a dead brown, and that's what this is. So somebody may like it. It's kind of a regular, you know, I think, drink out of a tavern kind of tankard here. Anyway, thanks for watching this video. Hope there was something that you like. Bye!