Raku Deux

On Saturday I did raku for the second time (see images from the first time here). Fran of Tin Barn Pottery and Manassas Clay is kind enough to host us at her little piece of heaven for the raku firing.

I took pictures of four of my pieces after they were glazed but before they went into the kiln. One was already in the kiln. And if I do say so myself, it's better than any of the five pieces I fired last time:

And speaking of rainbows...

The bottle above was fired in Dan's Blue glaze, and the two below were fired in Luster Duster. The bottle below came out a teal green, and the vase came out a metallic green with other colors mixed in.

The two pots in the foreground below are mine - on the left is another bottle glazed in Dan's Blue. I left the neck of the bottle unglazed, and it turned black due to the smoking process. The larger vase on the right is glazed in clear crackle, and right after I pulled it out of the kiln, I sprayed it with ferric chloride (which gives it a metallic sheen and golden orange color) and applied horse hair from my violin bow that needs to be re-haired.

The black lines that appear between the crackle comes from the smoking process. The smoke particles get into the cracks and adhere to the porous clay underneath the glaze.

You can see all of the smokey carbon inside the rim of the pot. Note also the smaller crackle lines inside the pot, and the white color without the ferric chloride.

After cleaning up the pots a bit, I took some pictures at home.

Detail of the Dan's Blue glaze.

You can see the reddish copper color at the bottom of this bottle. This is closer to the color that Luster Duster typically comes out.

The bubbles on this side indicate that the piece probably needs to be re-fired, and the glaze will probably react the way it should have.

Detail of the coppery section.

I think it was a good day. Despite the torrential rain and despite my relative inexperience, somehow I coaxed a grin from the raku gods.