First Ceramics Class: Part 2

About two weeks ago I talked about my first ceramics piece. It was only half finished so this is the second half of the project and how it turned out. After the piece was shaped it was put into an electric kiln to bake but after that it needed to be glazed. Our teacher wanted us to use a raku glaze on this project which would then have to be raku fired. A raku firing is a traditional Japanese process where the fired raku piece is removed from the hot kiln and is allowed to cool in the open air. Later on the process changed when the fired piece is placed in a container filled with combustible material. This is not traditional to the Japanese processes but this allows for a metallic finish on parts of the piece.

I had a lot of fun with this project because the class got to help with the firing process. The teacher asked me to help lift the lid to the kiln off and take out some of the pieces to place in the metal trash cans. After the pieces were placed in the containers flames started to raise so lids were placed on top and left to cool. Later they were laid on the ground and sprayed with water so that we could take them inside to clean the ash off. I really hope to be able to do raku firing on another piece because I really like the coloring of the glaze after its been baked.