No fancy pictures here. Red SHINO inside, not enough of it though, I had to buff the inside of the bowls. There is a lot to learn about SHINO glaze:)

Still working on a little bag for the bowls. The other bag I made was too much of a Texas bag, which means it won't work. Without the tea bowl book that tells how to make the right cover, I will just have to make something non-traditional, that will work...

Soda crystals formed on the glazed surface, from the soda ash in the SHINO glaze

I am going to try to make silk bags for some of the bowls I am happier with. This is a pattern I made out of denim, for fit. The real bags will be made from silk fabric:)

Bag prototype, should fit most of the bowls I make

Foot

Outside

Inside

Buttermilk glaze inside of all the SHINO bowls. I think the plain glaze is better:

SHINO

SHINO glaze

Too big, too busy, this one I do not like at all

Inside, please don't look at my dirty pottery hands

Outside

Inside

Painting with cobalt, a skin of lines

Too much fuss for a tea bowl:

Red SHINO

"Cornell iron saturate"

Cornell iron saturate glaze, cone 10, from the John Britt book, with a little strontium turquoise glaze, also from the Britt book, which should really be called the "Glaze Bible"

There is a lot to be said for a plain SHINO glaze.

In saying that, I am really saying more than you can know. I usually don't write on this blog, but just post pictures. Because of what the shino glaze has meant to me, I feel like it warrants writing about.

I had some problems firing a shino glaze that I made in the studio which I work out of. It was totally an accident, and I paid for the shelves and took my chewing out, which was brutal, but expected. Besides all of that, which is behind me, the shino glaze changed my life in a totally unexpected way. I posted the picture of the shino tea bowl with the firing job that got me into so much trouble a few months back. Anyway, because of this event I decided that I wanted to learn more about glazes and making the shino glaze in particular. I searched for a teacher that was an expert with the glaze that I wanted to make, and signed up for classes with him. He has been a wonderful instructor, and I have learned a great deal about glazing. I have met many nice people and have enjoyed making my own glazes. My next step is to learn to fire the gas reduction kiln, up to a cone 10. Were it not for the shino glaze, my life would be much different these days, which really says a lot.

My new teacher's name is Eric Jackson. If you google his name with pottery, and Austin, TX, you will pull up a web site with his pictures of the shino pottery he makes. They are very beautiful. I only hope to make shino as lovely as his one day.

Inside

Blue & White

Blue and white tea bowl

Do all potters have dry hands