How to Fire Pottery

Female: So now we’ve gone out of the room and this would be the piece that would get out of the first heating, the first— Female: The first firing, yes! Female: I’m sorry. Female: It’s okay. Female: So now it’s been this half baked. So this is what we’ve got at this point. Female: So it’s solid but not too solid. I mean it will shatter if you kind heat it a little harder. And now as you can see, you still have the little face. Well this is little different. It’s got a surprise looking, but this is where you would glaze. Female: You shine— Female: So this is when you would glaze your piece. The way I would glaze this guy, this guy has green onion side but do not complicate things too much. I’m just going to make him transparent completely. I’m going to grab a set of tongs and then you just kind of deep in slowly and you turn it until it’s completely covered. And what’s happen here is that it’s wet but because the piece is only half on fired, the piece so will have some absorbency to it so the liquid actually absorbs into piece right away. So you could see I’ve just deep in, but it’s dry now. I can touch it becomes like this kind of filled powder. Because of the tongs, you do have these little markings here and what I usually do is, if the markings are you know not too prevalent, I could just rub it. And once it gets fired, you won’t be able to see it anymore. Female: Okay and what about the little face? We also a little bit— Female: Oh but once it fires, it becomes a transparent because it’s a transparent glaze where is if it was colored obviously it would be covered in green but because this is a transparent glaze, the little face will show after the firing. You don’t want to have anything on the bottom of your piece because if you leave the glaze on the bottom and you fire it, it will stick to your shelf. So you really want to wipe off your bottom its good— Female: So that’s a very important actually. I guess that’s a very important advice. Female: Yes because even if you have a spot—yes in the shelf? Female: Exactly. Female: Absolutely, it has happened before.