Raku!

Thanks to the wonderful Kim Sacks for making it possible for my experiments in flower-petal wrapping of vessels to be Raku fired last week. Here are the results:

Work in Progress

23 August 2015 update: Yay! All the tall vases survived bisque firing! Now to glaze them - whew! Quite a lot to hold.

Earlier stages

One of my more recent vases - inspired by Kristina (in background) to try turning it after joining four cylinders together to make it.

Some of the tall vessels in various stages of drying before their first firing, accumulating to get enough to fill the kiln:

And my ugly ducklings - hopefully to turn into quirky jugs inspired by hornbills:

Returning to jug and bowl

While my long process continues - building enough tall vessels to fill a kiln for firing - I've been taking time out for other pieces. Here is a jug and some bowls:

Three brown bowls

Back to the simple basics with these three brown bowls. The glaze is called "Freckles" and the dark spots come from some manganese crystals added at the last minute without much intention to fully dissolve them in.

Glad these will join another matching bowl in Enny Ndlovu's collection.

Repurposing gives new life to old ceramics!

Thanks to my son Temba for this piece of inspiration...

... and a few more jugs for the holidays!

Definitely the most fun this year has been jug-making. Here are a few more for the end of the year:

Stacking to make vases ... is it bamboo or what?

Building tall vases by stacking two or more cylinders on top of each other is fun - and risky, as several attempts have cracked during firing. Here are some that survived:

And here is one in the making: