Ao-shino Chawan

There really is no such thing as an Ao Shino (blue shino) chawan. There’s nezumi shino which is more mouse grey than blue. The blue on this pot is what happens when you apply our traditional shino—which normally fires creamy white—to our house black clay body. That clay body, to achieve the black tone when fired uses a combination of iron and cobalt. And even though there’s not much cobalt in the clay body, it’s such a powerful colorant that, when it combines with the shino, it produces a range of blue tones to a more typical creamy white shino tone where applied thickest. I also put some iron wash under the shino glaze which has reacted with the shino and the clay body to form some areas that look almost like an oil spot glaze. This is a very non-traditional, but nonetheless interesting tea bowl.