Bisque surprises, Egyptian Paste and Burnt Lawns
This weekend we did a bisque firing of most of the clay pieces that we'd made over the winter with our molds. (From right to left, a few hundred thousand years of pyrotechnic progress.) Above are the pieces, pre-firing. Most were clay, but there were four Egyptian paste objects. Ka-blam! All the miniatures of the Hall blew up very early on, around 100°. I figure the clay was too thick, pockets of air within expanded... But the Venuses and yoni-lingams turned out lovely. And as usual, even if we thought this firing was going to be very straightforward, there were strange surprises. Three pieces had been modelled with the clay/sand mixture with which we built the mud oven: a yoni-lingam, a pine cone and a Venus. For some reason, the Venus got an incredible shiny glaze on it. There are tiny traces of shine on the yoni-lingam and pine cone, but the Venus shines nearly all over. I'm guessing it's because of the sand that was added, extra sil...