Raku

Stone ware                                   (4’x7.5’)  (5’x2.5’)

Project Challenge: Develop 2-3 forms that relate through subject and surface: at least one must be thrown, at least one must be a realistically formed animal. 

Reflection:

What is a Raku Firing? How did you take advantage of the process (and wax!) in your surface design?  

A practice of placing your pieces into woodships straight out of the kiln so that they burn the chips and create smoke in the controlled environment. We put a wax substance on some parts of the clay and those parts became dark black in color due to the smoke getting deep into the clay and staining it. On the other parts we put glazes which changed a lot during the raku process to be either cracked or a metallic like color.

Are you happy with your work on your raku forms?  Why or why not?  Explain how your two pieces relate and what you could do next time to create more of a relationship.

Yes, I am very happy with my raku forms. I think that my two pieces were connected well in their patterns. I related them by adding a striped carpet like pattern on the hump of the camel and also included this striped pattern on my bowl. For the future, I would want to do a better job with making sure to use the qtips to wipe the glaze off of the max a bit more thoroughly so that the dark lines stood out more 

Please describe what you thought was the most informative part of the field trip.  Are there changes you would recommend for the next time the forming of this project is done?  How would these changes improve the project?

I think that the most informative part of the field trip was that ceramics are super available and can be worked with outside of the classroom. To see portland pottery and here about all the other similar places was really cool for me because it showed how accessible ceramics can be which i think was super valuable and informative. I don't think that there needs to be any changes to this fieldtrip because i thought it was very interesting and enjoyable.

Raku Research: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z-9PlG-yD2_YIhQXfHTWVhkPk9IXKWJhn7hi1WCQtDI/edit?tab=t.0