Firing done & dusted :)

This 1st pic is when the kiln was just put into reduction, it gives a nice dark flame.

Where this 2nd pic shows our reduction flame pretty much at end temperature about 1300C.

The 1st dragon nearest you was at the top back, 2nd top front & the 3rd at the bottom front, gives you an idea of the hottest & coolest parts of the kiln.

First bricks of the door down & we were pleased, so far so good & validation of great reduction.

There's was a lot of pot's Hugh & I have tried for the first time this firing so we were anxious to see the results. At the top right of this pic you can see some of the rutile blue tulip vases that i tried & am delighted they turned out nice. These were Alan's design & we were running very low in the shop & needed to see if we could get them to work.

Ready steady go . . . . .

A wee action shot of Hugh cutting the wood in between heavy showers for the firing.

Dragons all standing to attention waiting patiently to get fired :)

Some of Alan's large cup's in granite with iron oxide decoration.

The pottery is stacked high with pots waiting to get fired as the weather has been bad for the past couple of weeks & we haven't even been able to cut enough wood never mind fire the kiln.

A lot of these pots are shape's Hugh & I have never tried before but we seem to be managing anyway, we'll see when they have fired. Fingers crossed :)

Spring has sprung.

As you can see from these pictures, spring has definitely sprung here at Argyll Pottery.

We had a couple of weeks of great sunshine :) then came the down poures of heavy showers :( so it's been great weather for the flowers.

Hugh cant keep up with cutting the grass, was cut 2 weeks ago & is already looking wild.

Love this time of year with all the gorgeous colours, makes me think of pretty summer dresses & getting rid of all the wooly jumpers for another year.

Hope you all enjoy looking at our pic's of the pottery garden as much as we enjoy the garden :)