It was two days into the week by the time I finished cleaning the remaining greenware. From there I fired off both bisque kilns and let them cool.
For the first time in months, I cleared the slab roller. With the work conveniently out of the way, there was an opportunity to replace the supply of firing cookies that was depleted in the last round of glaze firings. After two days and a bit I had just over three hundred ready.
The trick is to get the cookies to dry flat. What works for me is to leave them overnight pressed between large plaster bats. They are thin enough that they are leather hard by the next day. Then I stack them in even piles but continue to dry them with a heavy plaster bat on top until they start to change colour.
It feels reassuring to see the piles of leather hard cookies. A generally unknown part of the process, cookies prevent most issues of warping in the finished work by absorbing the stress of shrinkage. Sometime I will tell you about their other life.
I finished up the week with a trip to the supplier to restock stains and oxides. The bisque firings are being unloaded. Looking to have some closed forms and new glaze tests fired by next week.
