This week was filled with refiring a bunch of marginal pots and raku-ing my little wood-fired raku kiln to make raku totems!

View from my pottery studio patio swing!  SWEET!!
View from my pottery studio patio swing! SWEET!!

Refiring Glazes:

I made the decision to refire some pots from the last firing.

It was either toss them and take a hammer to them or give it a go and see what the results were.  It’s a big exercise in futility if nothing looks better, but because my last firing didn’t reach temperature, I was pretty sure that I would be happy with SOME of the results and that was good enough for me!

The process was:

  • Select pieces that could benefit from a refire.
  • Make a thin solution of CMC and water-paintable.
  • Coat the pieces with CMC where you want to add new glaze.
  • Add new glaze to the CMC’d pots by dipping, spraying, trailing or simply painting.
  • Fire as usual!

In general, I was quite happy with the results.  The ones that STILL look ugly to me, will either go in the Seconds box or I will destroy them with the same glee that went into making them!  Sad, but true!

White with sprayed Iris, Cobalt blue and copper red glazes-High Fire Cone 10 Reduction
White with sprayed Iris, Cobalt blue and copper red glazes-High Fire Cone 10 Reduction
White with sprayed Iris, Cobalt blue and copper red glazes-High Fire Cone 10 Reduction
White with sprayed Iris, Cobalt blue and copper red glazes-High Fire Cone 10 Reduction
Cobalt Blue with Iris, Red, and Teal accents-High Fire Cone 10 Reduction
Cobalt Blue with Iris, Red, and Teal accents-High Fire Cone 10 Reduction

I’ve tried refiring before-here’s the post about that.

Wood-fired Raku Kiln:

I haven’t fired my little wood-fired raku kiln much-just lazy I suppose!  Here’s the previous post on building it!

So put it to the test and fired lots of little pieces for a totem.  Some came out good-others bad, but I did construct a totem!

Ronnie decided I needed a proper raku shed (code:  Get your raku stuff out of my barn!).  So he took the tractor and cleaned out an area and took the junk out of an old ramshackled silo!  So now I have a raku shed outside the barn, but still under cover.  It is a bit messy, smoky, and trashy!  But is it worth it?  Oh Yeah!

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Here’s some pics of the finished totem and one that is a work in progress.  Just a bit of fun to test out my raku glazes and the little kiln!

Finished Raku Totem
Finished Raku Totem
In-progress Raku Totem
In-progress Raku Totem
Got some nice raku colour!
Got some nice raku colour!

I also did a bit of throwing, slabbing, and making of test tiles.

Large thrown bowl
Large thrown bowl
A thrown ring of test tiles.
A thrown ring of test tiles.
Thrown pieces for raku totem
Thrown pieces for raku totem
Thrown Edge for Casserole
Thrown Edge for Casserole

Truly Southurst posted this on facebook and I LOVE it!  Something to remember as the week goes by!

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And, of course, cutey Samantha was there by my side!  My pottery buddy!

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