Cone 6 Covids

Blue, triangular and bumpy surfaced COVID balls

Earlier this month I fired a kiln load with a whole bunch of different items, including bulbs from last summer, planters and mugs with a COVID theme, and a batch of cone 6 glazed COVID balls.

COVID balls underglazed like the original batch

I've been playing around with these COVID balls since December/January of this year. and I've tried out a few different decoration and glaze options, as well as different clay.

Blue and bumpy cone 6 celadon COVID balls

I thought I'd try these ones fired to cone 6. I've been using some cone 6 glazes, mostly celadons for my functional work, but haven't used them much for sculpture (I usually fire my sculpture to low temperatures with layered underglazes).

Martianware COVID ball

For the new year's bulbs, my approach was very much my typical color approach, bright and loud with chartreuse and red. I admit I was also thinking kind of Christmas-y colors, too. 

Underglaze and Mt. St. Helen's glaze COVID ball

When I made more bulbs to order, I kept these same colors but also added some of my Mt. St. Helen's Ash glaze from last spring. The Mt. St. Helen's ash is actually a cone 6 glaze, but I fired it to a lower temperature because that's what I had done last time for the Mt. St. Helen's show.

Martianware clay gives varigated colors, depending on either the drying or firing

After Seattle Pottery came out with their Martianware clay, I made some more COVIDs with that clay to test it out. These are low temperature bulbs because the clay basically glazes itself. 

Green/grey textured cone 6 COVID balls

The cone 6 COVID balls were done to test out a few things. First, in buiding them I was testing out adding little bits of dry or semi-dry clay to the surface of the forms to make a chunky, slightly icky surface texture. I also experimented with triangular bits sticking out from the balls instead of round. The triangles are harder to make, or at least take a bit more concentration.

I think these are probably closest to the famous photo

Part of the reason I wanted to fire these to a higher temperature was because I really like my red cone 6 glaze (Amaco's Deep Firebrick), and partly because I wanted the base glaze to have a little more variation to highlight the textures I'd added. The most familiar COVID image that we've all seen everywhere for the past year and a half is grey and red with orange, though I remembered it as blue and red. With this batch, I used light blue, dark green, and grey glazes to try out a few different options.

all the COVID balls in this post are looking for new homes, if you are interested

I don't know if I've decided which ones I prefer. I enjoyed the process of trying out the various options and I still have a batch waiting to be glazed and fired. I also just pulled the last three of the Martianware pieces out of the kiln yesterday. These ones sat around longer and at first glance the surface is different, too. I'll have to take some time to compare more closely. 

Martianware COVIDS

I think I'll be doing a show in September and I expect to have most of this stuff available then. If you need a COVID ball now, let me know.