Raku – Here are my three little objects I was able to have in the Raku fireing. They are all about a handful each in size. This year it was a definite success for everyone involved, and that had to do with our new teacher that has done this more often then our other teacher that don’t have as much experiance with the special fireing technique.

So what is Raku? Well you could always google to find out more detail, but I can also give you a breif summory!
Raku is a special fireing technique that originates from japan. In basic terms you will heat up your objects in either a gas or electric kiln, usually it’s round, were there is a smaller peep hole at the top, were you can see all the wears. During a 15-20 minute process you need to keep an eye on your goods to see that they heat up and start to grow, then bubble a bit and then when they are smooth again they are ready to be taken out.
The next step is to place the objects into something organic that is flammable, we used saw dust, however you can also use dry leaves, hair or dry compost. We place the objects in a metalic bin of sorts, were there is a layer of sawdust at the bottom. Then you sprinkte a bit more ontop before closing the lid and letting the object cool down in the now smoak filled bin.
What happenes in there is that because the object is very, very hot and being cooled down so uproperty, small cracks form in the glaze were the trapped smoak from the sawdust creeps in and stains the clay black. Here they can stay for a bit or until you have to use the bin again for the next batch of wears.
We take the objects out with tongs because they are still quite hot, and place them on the gras a bit to cool down further before then putting them in water so to quicken the process even more. Here after you can leave it as it is or take a metal brush and pollish the peice a bit to make the surface shine.