Raku Firing Demonstration

 

looking into a hot Raku Kiln

My first blog entry, ever.  No pressure, what should I cover first.

How about Raku pottery and my Demo firing at the July Final Friday in Nelsonville Ohio.  If you were there thanks for checking out my web site and I hope you won the raffle!!! I’m writing this the day before as I fire some of the pieces I made, today.  There won’t be time Friday evening to do all the pots I made from the 50 lb box of Raku clay that I got from the Nelsonville Emporium last month.  So far I have only broken one piece probably because it was too tall for the smoking chamber and I hit it with the lid when it was molten hot and in a fragile state. Well time has flown, the Raku firing was a great success!  The weather was perfect, I had a great spot right next to the fountain.  I didn’t blow up any pots and people were properly amazed to see a glowing orange pot being lifted out of the kiln & placed in sawdust where flames ensued. The Raku Raffle was won by Mike.  He chose a blank pot, applied glaze by dipping into a 5 gallon bucket then shaking off the excess.  He also loaded the pot into the kiln, then lifted out the hot pot and placed it in the smoke chamber.  The results were fabulous with beautiful lustre colors.

Raku Kiln set up by the fountain

pulling out a red hot piece of pottery

washing off the ashes

things get really dramatic when the sun goes down

Here are some of the ware that was fired that evening.