Sunday, March 28, 2010

A Few Raku Pieces to Fire



Just a few raku pieces that need to be fired. The two figures were made last year. The little one was carved out of porcelain. The other one was just my regular stoneware clay body. Both were glazed with clear crackle raku glaze. The covered container was dipped in clear crackle raku glaze and the top portion and lid dipped in a "mystery" scrap glaze. The masks are porcelain and were made from plaster molds. They're fragile right now. I'm not sure how they'll handle the raku kiln. All three were dipped in clear crackle. The two tea bowls are glazed with clear crackle and the rims dipped in different "mystery" glazes. I also have some other tea bowls to fire. Two of those are glazed with TAK White raku glaze. It is supposed to be a thick fat white glaze but the first time I used it it came out as a smooth glassy opaque white, not very "fat" at all. This time around I applied it super thick. We'll see what happens.

For the past two weeks I've been glazing a lot of pieces that I fired in the electric kiln yesterday. I fired to cone 05 and it took me 6 hours start to finish. It probably would have taken less than 6 hours but I noticed that two of my elements are either burned out or not working properly. Anyway, I'll open it up today and see how everything came out. I haven't used any of these glazes before. They are Amaco matt and gloss glazes that were given to me because they were "old." Yeah, they must have sat on the shelf for a few years or more, probably more. They were all brand new, never opened, but the water had evaporated and I had to spoon out each glaze, reconstitue, and run it through the sieve a few times. It took a lot of work, but they were free.

I have a few olive oil bottles, some coffee mugs, some incense burners, a spitoon, a yarn bowl for my mother, and a bunch of other small stuff.
I'm out of clay so hopefully I'll sell this stuff real quick, buy some more, and get back to kicking the wheel.