Peacock spider I found while fossicking in Bredbo, NSW

Plaque on a big lump of syenite on Gulaga, just north of central Tilba. Alas, I'm not allowed to take any home, but I already have a little bit from an old collection.

Beach finds from yesterday. A bit of sea glass, along with bits of porcelain, brick and tile. And also the fittings from a sink that someone had thrown off the cliff.

I found a new glaze ingredient to experiment with. #pottery

Glass dots just out of the kiln. They are a mix of container glass, antique glass and old bead making rods. A few have a weird metallic sheen on them (I suspect is from the manganese in the purple glass) and the antique blue bottle glass seems to have crazed slightly on top.

Shale layers in the road cut near Gungahlin cemetery, Canberra.

One-eyed frog that jumped in the clay bucket.

Bits of trilobite fossils.

Crinoid fossils in the dirt.

Teeny fluffy spider on a piece of fossilised coral.

Broken glass and pottery I found in Bonang that had been washed out after heavy rain. Some of the bottles had been melted.

Went looking for an old mine site, this was the road in. Will try again when it hasn't been raining.

I think the weeds won

Obsidian after the bisque fire. It didn't melt, but it did lose its gloss.

More autumn flowers

Prototype wheel-thrown bonsai pots, going in the kiln tomorrow. #pottery

Two forms of rhodonite I got from the rock swap. I'll probably have to use stains to get that shade of pink in a glaze.

Obsidian I got at today's rock swap. What I do with it will depend on how well it melts in the kiln.

Wood ash glaze on reclaimed porcelain. The glaze was a little lumpy because I didn't mix it properly after it settled, but the colour looks great. #pottery

Outer glaze is red desert clay + 20% frit 3135. Inner is a SiC celadon made with some of the same clay. #pottery

Failed SiC granite celadon. I need to try again with more silicon carbide and a slightly thicker application. #pottery

I found this site a while ago. It is a useful guide to old bottle glass, and what elements give rise to different colours. I also just love old websites like this. secure-sha.org/bottle/color...

Little pot with floating pink glaze. The glaze contains crushed green bottle glass and tin, which react to give the colour. Green glass was melted over the top. I've made a pot like this before. This time the pot was on prop with a bowl underneath so the glass didn't stick to the bottom.

Porcelain egg with desert clay SiC celadon glaze, with a little copper solution sprayed on. #pottery

Mini mugs. The pink one is floating glaze with green bottle glass mixed with tin. The cream mug has 6% wolframite glaze, probably needs twice as much to get a richer colour. #pottery

Moar rocks!

Bottle of crocoite from Tasmania. Very pretty but far too toxic to use as a glaze material.

Autumn in the garden

New batch of forbidden gatorade.

Some weird little test pieces from a soda-kiln firing. The round pots contain glaze, but unfortunately the kiln didn't get hot enough for it to properly melt. #pottery

Enlighten festival after the rain. #Enlighten #CBR

Playing around with Glazy's UMF chart. I put various rocks on the chart, just to see how close they were to being functional glazes. #pottery

Working on new glaze recipes #pottery

Today seems like a good day to organise my rock collection

"Is there a technology the left is excited about?"

Acrylic paint on terracotta #pottery

Experimenting making "gems" using underglaze with a small amount of glaze on top #pottery

New tool #pottery

SiC celadon on reclaimed porcelain mixed with red clay. It came out more grey. Interestingly, the clay body also turned grey. #Pottery

New project

Gerstley borate occasionally pops up for sale. The mine where it is sourced from closed in 2000, but there are still stockpiles out there. Getting more from the site would be an adventure for anyone determined enough.

I have some works in an upcoming exhibition in Canberra. #Pottery

Lizard

Big lump of feldspar with quartz and schorl from near Broken Hill. I wish I had a ball mill.

Teeny ash glazed porcelain pot. Some of that malachite was included in the glaze, but the green colour doesn't really show as the glaze needs to be very thin on miniature pots. #Pottery

Butterfly from this morning's walk.

SiC celadon attempt 2. Added more water to get a thinner glaze, looks ok now. A few darker specs are from the silty clay I found. #pottery

Hyacinth orchid near Bonang. I want to try to get that spotted pink colour in a glaze.

Sandstone close-ups

Clay resupply