5-the seductive reveal
Today is the day!
I get up rather early, having tossed and turned most of the night, dreaming of the pleasurable wonders that await in that little kiln of mine. I have left the kiln closed over night to cool completely to room temperature, not wanting to risk any thermal shock to my test vases in opening the kiln too early. I also figured that it might be hotter inside the flowerpots than outside, so needed to account for that as well. ….. oh the will power that took me!
Yesterday, I took the kiln up to 755 degrees C over six hours and recorded the colour and also smell. I left all bungs out for the entire firing and cooling process to get as much oxygen flow through as possible. Up to around 300 degrees C a gorgeous sweet smell drifted through the air, reminding me of wood chips used for smoking Tommy Ruff fish, this was followed by a ‘bushfire’ smell.
But this is all a bit of a tease isn’t it ….. so back to the reveal….Even before having coffee, as the sun was coming up, I was in the garage moving the car out of the way so I could get to the kiln door. The kiln was completely cold to touch with the pyrometre reading 14 degrees C.
I slowly opened the door and peered inside. Both flowerpots looked unchanged and the shelf on top was intack and remarkably clean. Did anything happen at all? I lifted off the kiln shelf and peered inside the pots. The aluminium foil had started to disintegrate, so that was promising and I could see the some material, although charred, remained around the top of the vase inside the flowerpot saggar. There was no evidence at all of any ash or debris in the kiln, nor any smoke or charred stains on the bottom of the kiln shelf. So the saggars did their job - they worked!
The remaining organic material just crumbled and fell away when I lifted the vase from the flowerpot saggar. When it came out the effects were subtle and smoky, shades of grey and pale pinks. Well, that’s pretty, it’s soft and delicate, but beautiful all the same.
The foil just flaked away on the other vase and what came out was breathtaking. The first colour I saw was a deep orange, a splash of red and black and blue smudges. The photo below are the test vases straight out of their saggars.
Now to give them a bit of a clean up. Into some water with a non-scratch scourer I scrubbed the remaining ash and debris from them and put them in the morning sunrise to dry.
As if they absorbed the morning sunrise rays which just added to their natural warmth, they dried to a tee - and some photos below of around the vases so you can see the effects on all sides.
I found it quite amazing the difference between the vase in the aluminium foil saggar in a terracotta pot (my double saggar!) and the vase in the flowerpot saggar only. Minus the few grains of table salt and a 2 drops of vitamin E serum in the foil vase, all of the other organics were the same and applied the same as much as I could. There was evidence of some reduction occuring on the base of this vase. What was missing on both was any marking of the copper wire - I don’t think I wrapped this tightly enough on the vases - in fact I think I might wrap more all of the organics and metals more tightly, especially on those vases going into a single saggar. (The copper wire may be the red flashes on the foil saggar vase though?).
When they were dry, I finished them off with a light buff with some bees wax furniture polish - this bought out the gorgeous satin sheen from the terra sigillata I applied before the vases were bisqued.
It didn’t take me long after ooohing and aaaahhhing over these, that I was moving on to the next!
Six this time, all at the same time, in double saggars (foil and flowerpots), with materials wrapped tightly around, more cobalt carbonate and some other interesting ingredients which will come to light in the next session of saggar in the city … where we will dive deeper, with more experience, knowing a little bit more about what the fire desires …