Wednesday 7 July 2010

Day Two and a Half

Tuesday has been a manic day, with too much to cram in
First thing this morning we made up a new batch of glaze.
I phoned the Somerton Gallery to ask when they needed my pots by.
and they said Wednesday morning. I explained that I was just glazing them and the soonest we could get them to the gallery was Thursday morning. so Thursday morning it is.

We put up the marquee set up the kiln, found a stockist that had some Propane Gas
then found I hadn't got any matches.

The first four pots in the Raku kiln.
and the burner is lit.
I've already come to the conclusion the hole for the burner isn't big enough.
within the hour it had heated up nicely.

The first pots were put in the sawdust.

Then taken out and dipped in a bucket of water.

This is me in action. My first ever Raku firing.

Pots before the clean up.
The evening class team inspect their pots.

These were the results.
This was a Turquoise glaze ???...
The party went on late into the night.
and this was the fall out this morning.
everything just got pushed in the showroom door at 11.45pm

This was the kiln this morning.

and this was the bucket we washed the pots in !.
all in all we had some good fun. and learnt an awful lot in the process. any feed back would be welcome.

8 comments:

Lori Buff said...

Having fun is one of the main requirements of a raku party, you did that right. Nice glaze on half of that bowl but I'm not sure what steps were taken to know what went wrong on the other pots. Here's an article that About.com did using my photos, it might give you some tips:
http://pottery.about.com/od/firingthekiln/ss/raku_firing.htm
Cheers,
Lori

Hollis Engley said...

Raku can be a roll of the dice, particularly as you start out. I did it years ago when I was just beginning to make pots, but haven't done it for years. No doubt Tracey Broome will see this post and comment with some helpful suggestions. She's been turning out some lovely raku work.

Brian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tracey Broome said...

I would agree that you got too much reduction, but what was the recipe, how long did you leave it in the can,what was your combustible material, how hot did you fire it? I have some great easy recipes if you want them, just give a shout out. Copper Carbonate is your friend if you like Raku.
My Raku class always has fun and we never even worry about the results, I think it's all about playing with fire! I love that little kiln!!

Tracey Broome said...

Hey, I emailed you an excel file with some recipes, if you can't open it, let me know and I will resend in a word doc! Good luck!!

ang design said...

mmmmm interesting paul! did you use a pyro? and some of the glaze looks like a run off dont know? is it all over the shelf? or it didnt get to melting temp...we leave ours in the sawdust bins for an hour at least for lustres it really depends on the glaze and you dont always need water it depends on the technique..it really looks like a fun night though and as others have said that is the raku thing!!

Hollis Engley said...

I knew Tracey would come through ...

ang design said...

Just another thought paul, you have a lot of carbon residue inside the bin which indicates unburnt fuel so either don't cover the chimney space or reduce your fuel going in and or you need more primary oxygen going in with the burner to use up the fuel, probably all 3 of those things..i'll take a pick of the inside of my kiln, the fibre is still white..

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