Work in progress

A set of nesting bowls in the making...

Work in progress

Perhaps I'm exaggerating by posting so many work in progress pictures lately but I am working really hard to get everything done for the Sunday Market in Amsterdam.
I made some birch vases & they are in the kiln as we speak. They come out on thursday which will give me just enough time to glaze and fire 'em again. And then they will come out of the kiln again on saturday so that I can wrap 'em up and take 'em to Amsterdam.
Tight timing so I'm just a little bit stressed... :)

Result Birch tumbler

Remember I made birch tumblers the other day?
They were bisque fired and looked really good but suddenly I was doubting they would look good when glazed. I looked at my stain samples to see if I could apply a bit more color to them as they looked too white. Of course I had a sample which seemed to have the perfect color but I never wrote down how I mixed it. Bummer and lesson learned!

So I didn't dare to apply it to all my cups and made new samples for future reference.
I mixed some black stain with water and applied it to the cup. I rubbed it off nearly right away and let the cup dry again. Then I applied some transparant glaze and fired it.

I think that it comes pretty close. Perhaps I should leave the stain a tad bit longer to darken it up a bit more. It came out better then I expected but...

You see that some of the glaze chipped off?
That's because the clay slib I made myself didn't really attach to the clay.
So, good that I made a sample and now I know I'll have to add some glaze to the clay slib to make it stick better. I have a lot of cups which have been bisquefired already and I can not change the clay slib anymore.
I'll cross my fingers it was just accidental with this one cup! :)

But I really do like the end result! Do you?