Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Amazing Technicolor Bronzclay

The color from this batch had me thinking of the Amazing Technicolor Coat- only for Bronzclay. There were some unfortunate mistakes on my part, as you can see some bubbles/blisters- I don't recall leaving any air trapped between layers, guess I'll have to be more vigilant next time. Or it could be the temp. now that I think of it- I forgot to lower my kiln by 5 degrees like I normally do..could this be the culprit for my beads' wart-like appearance? The leaf pendant has that amazing color on the front and back. I placed it on the very bottom and middle of the firing chamber- et voila!
As always, after my firing is done I try and get out to the studio to crack the lid slightly to let the heat escape until the inside reaches 1000*. Then I take the lid off of the kiln and let it continue to cool- this is also the point that I normally take the lid off the firing chamber, but I left it on this time. Before, I would wait until the interior reached 600* and would remove the chamber w/ my pieces -carefully!- and let it continue to cool for a few minutes before sifting the pieces from the charcoal.
This morning I was distracted and sorta forgot about the bronzclay after I took the kiln lid off and the interior read around 285* when I got back to it. When I took the lid off the chamber, I set it on my kiln lid and left it too cool to room temp. since I was feeding my son. And these were the colors I had after I sifted them from the charcoal!

5 comments:

Vickie Hallmark said...

Wow! Beautiful colors. I'll be interested to see if you can get any reproducibility.

Aja Vaz said...

Thanks, Vickie- I'll be sure to post my next (hopefully)success when I get back from my trip.

Unknown said...

Wow....those are really awesome! Now I want to try bronzeclay

Stephanie Bonniwell said...

Gorgeous work! The textures and colors and fantastic, Aja.

Aja Vaz said...

Thanks, Heather and Stephanie!