the clean up and some flowers

Drowned Feather 3 is out of the kiln and cleaned off.

breaking away the mold

most of the plaster cleaned off

in its vinegar bath

ready for the finish work

Notes on using sand vs water to take a volume measure...the sand proved to be dead on accurate. The water usually comes out a little high because unless the mold is totally saturated it will absorb some even as you are pouring it in the mold and then there's the whole surface tension thing. I usually try to do the water measure within a day of the mold being made and I will generally do it three times in a row and use the third value which is always less than the first and second.

When I first opened the kiln and saw the back of the piece I was afraid it had failed because it looked as if the black had boiled. Here we are with the other issue of compatibility, not expansion and contraction, but stiff vs soft. Soft glass melts at a lower temperature, stiff glass needs more heat. In order to make sure the white melted enough to fill the small spaces of the feather Marc fired it at 1550˚.

Here's what the back looks like.

It's supposed to be solid white, you can see how the black and the sand mix boiled up. I was afraid it had pulled too much glass from the rock forms and filled in with the sand or white. But the front proved to be fine.

A few pics from the yard...

mexican bird of paradise

white butterfly ginger

pine cone lily, a ginger (gift from Ms Moon); I took 8 pictures of this trying to get my phone camera to pick up the detail in the white flowers but it doesn't like white flowers

rangoon creeper

begonia

More rain during the night and rumbly out there today.