Working with Clay 6: Raku

Raku Firing

 

Saw Dust Brick Firing

Like with Raku, but you build your own kiln. You add various combustibles for color and textural designs. Like using steel wool, banana peels, sugar, salt, coffee, lavender.

 

Naked Raku

To try this technique, you should first burnish your vessel thoroughly, because naked raku isn’t glazed. First you bisque fire your vessel, and then you raku fire it, at nearly 1000 C. Be very careful placing pieces into and out of the kiln with tongs, or they can break. You can decorate the sides with various objects that burn the sides of the vessel (combustibles) – feathers, hair, flowers, smoke, seaweed, sprinkled sugar, string, lavender and grasses, sawdust. If the temperature is too low, the combustibles won’t burn. If it’s too hot, they’ll burn too quickly, not leaving a decorative mark. Different combustibles burn at different temperatures too, so you have to know in what order to place your combustibles. If you want the interior black, put in a rolled up paper like newspaper or a magazine.

 

You can use paper stencils to burn patterns into your raku vessel.

 

You can also dip the heated vessel in a vat of water/flour, and yeast. Then you fix it by dipping the piece in water. But it’s risky because the thermal shock could cause it to shatter.