More Raku!!

Like I said... I tend to make turtles... not sure what that is about. Anyway, here are two Raku Turtles as well as a raku mushroom.  You can see the turtle and mushroom are in the ficus tree in the sitting room. The lone turtle needs a home...

loaded the bisque kiln...

I went yesterday and helped load the bisque kiln at 1pm (4/4/12) and some of the pots from the last post were in it.  So learning to do the firing using the old manual skutt kiln. The one at the studio is a smaller version of what we have (still a few paychecks away from working).  But since we are still using the studio kiln for 100% of my firings... we are bisqueing everything. Bleh!!  Soon I will dump the bisque fire and do only single fire....

Of course once we really get going we will have a kiln built in the back yard (gas/wood hybrid)... so Pikachu promises.  Once we have that we will be able to soda fire as well!!!  (again single fire!!)....

Oh well,  being patient.  One step at a time.  After all I have a wheel, a slab roller... and I have conquered the entire garage and made it a functional studio!!

New Pots

Ok, these are the newest pots.  They are dry at this stage but not yet fired.  You cannot see the slab plates in these pix, but we had two break in the damn car on the way to the studio.  The dark chocolate colored clay is actually the black clay you can see in other pix, it fires black.  The lighter colored clay is called "speckled buff" and we will see how that turns out.  Never used it before but it was nice to throw with.  So new mugs and bowls!!

Ok last pic is one pikachu took of me when we were first dating and the wheel was still on the back porch.  I think I was making a flower pot.

RAKU !!

So, I really don't know how to turn pix so yes they are sideways.  For Pikachu's birthday I did a Raku Workshop that both of us went to.  I don't have any good shots of the workshop, but I have some posted on foursquare at the Cup & Bowl check in.  Anyway, here are some of my pieces I made and raku'd.  I am keeping these, there are others that I have send off and a few that still need homes!

The mask I was especially happy with and I think that I will make a few more.  There are some turtles I did not get pix of, I may take some so they are documented.  I seem to make a lot of turtles.

Raku was great, I really don't like to make non-functional stuff.  But the process of Raku is great so... well I may need to find places to send Raku pieces so we have an excuse to raku in our own yard.

Plates and Pitchers

Some plates, all in a brown clay with oxide designs.  Some pitchers, white clay and brown clay-again oxide design.  You can see the most recent pitcher on the shelf.  I liked the shape of this one so I kept it.  That is actually a shelf in the house with random pots I have made.

You can see the small pitcher with the match, it is for tea and hold about one mug of tea.

Assorted old bowls

Assorted bowls I have made and kept.  Again my match to show size.  All rather small GP bowls except the very small one up top, that was thrown off the hump.

cups... some old ones...

Some older cups I made and have actually kept.  Most have found homes elsewhere.  Match so you can see size