Slip Trailer Lines on Functional Work

I fired some low temperature functional work. I've been glazing for week and have been using mostly underglazes at this temperature. I've used a few glazes, but mostly I prefer the color contrast and stability of the underglazes.

I'm pretty happy with this bowl, the third attempt at this basic design.

I've also been using a slip trailer quite a bit, mostly for black underglaze. I leave the black underglaze in the trailer so that I don't have to wash it out every day. The trailer has a very fine tip and, with a needle in the tip, the underglaze doesn't dry out.

This mug was fired with a boring cone 04 glaze, then retired with the slip trailing and colored underglazes.

I had several new unglazed mugs and a few mugs with glaze that I didn't particularly like. The low fire glazes I have tend to look best in large plain areas with a drawing over the top, as in the one above and the one below to the right.

These mugs have a similar design, but with glaze on the bottom of the one on the right.

I've also used circular sponge stamps to place dots of underglaze and then decorated the dots of color with the slip trailed black. The texture of these decorations is sometimes a little rough, but I've added some clear and am re-firing the mugs that don't feel smooth.

This was a failed bubble plate, re-fired with underglaze trailing.

I've continued playing with the falling balls of color, like balloons or ornaments on a string. These work best when I am sure to have an even coat of color inside the circles. The underglazes sometimes look or feel like they have been applied evenly, then after firing irregularities show up.

Both of my bright yellow underglazes (Amaco and Duncan) are usually splotchy and hard to use well.

I prefer the look of the cone 6 celadon glazes to the cone 04 glazes in my studio. I intend to use the slip trailer and underglazes in combination with these higher temperature glazes in a future firing.

The uderglaze decoration was added on top of the fired Celadon glaze.

This summer I expect to fire two more cone 04 kiln loads and at least one cone 6 firing. I'm having some trouble focusing on the glazing and firing, partly because I find glazing fairly boring, and partly because I have responsibilities on campus that need to be addressed before the start of the academic year.

The last tiny pots from Christmas, finally finished.