My new coffee mug

It's been a while since I treated myself to a new coffee mug but I've worked so hard getting this red glaze to work I think it's important to keep the first one out of the kiln. I have put a Rutile glaze on the inside and allowed it to run over the Kaki red glaze. Very simple to do yet effective....a definite keeper.

This firing was mainly loaded with Rutile over Temnoku, it's good to be at the point of getting over 80% sellable pots out of a firing and these have a real touch of class about them.

Of course there were a few tests.

I'm very taken with this one, a clear glaze with others trailed over...plenty of potential especially since I'm looking for simplicity in decoration techniques and allowing the glazes to do all the work.

This mug was painted with stained slip and then decorated with iron pigment before biscuit firing and glazing with a clear glaze. Unfortunately the iron pigment wasn't quite thick or strong enough to get the iron to burn through the glaze.

You can see here on the handle the effect I was looking for, next time I may trail the pigment on....but having said that I like the brush marks so may be the way to go would be to increase the amount of iron.

This Kaki over Temnoku was a spur of the moment choice and was placed in a cooler part of the kiln...I love it, it has a lovely chocolatey quality to it. My kiln has a large temperature difference with the top shelve being about 40 deg. C cooler than the bottom. So finding cooler firing effects is quite important.

My Macintoshy designs turned out well but whether I keep doing them remains to be seen.

I was a little surprised at how runny the red glazes are and was hoping for the trailed glazes to sit on top a bit more, may be trying them in the cool part of the kiln will help.

All in all it was a good little firing and puts me on track. Plenty for me to think about and I'm looking forward to the usual 4 o'clock in the morning eureka moment that  takes me off into the next new direction.