Cones?

Since I'm making pieces both at school and in the studio, I asked my teacher if it was possible to bring in some finished pieces from the studio into school and glaze them and fire in her kiln. She said it could happen if both Julia's clay was fired in the same cone as her clay. Cone? No idea what that means. So it was time to get to business and learn what that meant.

The full term used for the cones is pyrometric cone. A pyrometer is what's used to measure things at temperatures too high for regular thermometers. What a cone is, is a type of pyrometer.

And? These cones are made of silica and melting agents with triangular bottoms. Since they reach such high temperatures, they're designed to soften and bend at their bases. What these cones are used for are to test the temperature of kilns. Really, they don't "measure" the amount of heat in the kiln, but rather how much heat-energy the pieces inside have absorbed. Cones numbers go from 022 to 14, having the numbers with zeros be a lower temperature.

How do you know what your "desired" temperature is?
The hotter it gets, the more bend the cone begins to have. Once the cone being fired has reached a 90 degree angle, that's your desired temperature. If it's at less of an angle, the glazes are under-fired, and vice versa with over bending, they were over-fired.

In sum, cones refer to the temperature at which clay is properly cooked and properly glazed. Lucky for me, both Julia's clay and Ms. Lutter's clay fire to cone 6 (2232 degrees Fahrenheit) and I can use glazes at either studio.
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On another note! I've made two new mugs! I'm unsure of the color for both of them and am debating whether to add a handle to the other or not (it also depends how dried out it'll be next time I go). But, here are the two sketches (not criticize too much, I'm no artist) of them.

The first one is much larger than any ones I've made previously in terms of how much liquid it can hold, which is exciting because I personally love big mugs. The only downside to it is though is that it's considerably heavier than others and I don't know what adding a handle would do to it. This is the mug that I trimmed a handful of clay off of to make smaller/lighter.

I also picked up three mugs from the studio that I glazed. I'm learning to love the imperfections of pieces but am still upset about some of them.

The first (my absolute favorite) has nothing wrong with it except I decided not to paint the bottom hoping it would drip a little, and it didn't.
The second one was suppose to be one solid color of forest green but instead looks like it was tye-dyed with green which my mom actually really likes.
And the third, well it was an experimental mug so I used it with a glaze that I didn't want to risk on another mug first called "Ketchup". I'm not the biggest fan of it but it was a great experiment and I'm definitely keeping that mug for my presentation anyway.


That's all for now! 

Except workcited:
Jones, Bill. "Ten Basics of Firing Electric Kilns." Ceramic Arts Daily RSS. Ceramic Arts Daily, 17 Apr. 2009. Web. 06 May 2013.
 Peterson, Beth. "Pyrometric Cones." About.com Pottery. About, n.d. Web. 06 May 2013
 Reinbold, Joan. "Definition of Cones in Ceramics." EHow. Demand Media, 13 Nov. 2009. Web. 06 May 2013.
http://www.ceramicstoday.com/cones.htm