I taught @sweets4ever how to raku! 
I love raku. It’s probably my favorite pottery technique. You just never know how the fire and smoke are going to dance around the piece, or exactly what the final result will be.
Safety first. 
Peeking into the raku kiln.
We fire the pieces to 1850 -1875 degrees F, using a pyrometer to monitor the progress.
With traditional firings, you’d wait for the kiln to completely cool before accessing your pottery. For raku, we need to get the pieces while they are still at full temperature, so they combust the materials in the trash can. So the raku kiln has a pulley mechanism directly above it, which allows the lid to raise up and reveal the pieces. It makes it easier to grab them with the tongs and not meet our demise. 
From here, we remove the pieces with long metal tongs and pray to the kiln gods that we don’t drop and smash them on the way to the can.
Into the super fancy metal trash can they go for reduction.
For this firing, we used crumpled newspaper as the combustible. All sorts of materials can be used for this step and they each create a different result. Pine needles, wood shavings, sawdust, horse hair, cloth, etc. can be used.
After the piece has reduced, we remove it with tongs once again (it’s still extremely hot) and rinse it. Then we scrub and polish it to remove any remaining ash, soot, etc. This step really reveals the shimmer and shine of the glazes.
The black area on the neck is where no glaze was applied. It’s colored with the flame & smoke itself. The belly of the pot is a glaze called Raku Burst.
brave women 
