Raku Taster – 27th April 2025

Woke up to a pleasant Sunday morning and got the studio ready for the arrival of our latest group of Raku Taster students.  Everyone was on time, and we had the customary cuppa to start the day off. A great butch of students with most having had some form of experience with pottery but none having done Raku.  Adrian gave his safety talk and went into a little talk about pottery, types of clay and general firing principles. We discussed the difference between other pottery and Raku, with the latter being a very fast form of firing. After the history of Raku, Karen showed the students the various styles of Raku that we both do and how to achieve the different finishes.

The students then all chose 2 bisqued pots from the selection and most opted to purchase a third. Karen’s bowls and the new spheres Adrian made seemed to go down well this time. I think everyone liked Karen’s example using tape and underglaze with a transparent glaze over it.  Most the students this time chose to do one pot each with horse hair and feathers, so putting that aside they started decorating their other two pots.  By about 12.30pm, Adrian needed to hurry a couple of them up as they needed to have lunch before firing up the kiln. 

After lunch, we had three firings with the middle one being the horsehair / feather style. Some of the students bought along their own animal fur, feathers, and other strange things to try.  The best is still sugar, horse hair, finer feathers and sleeps fleece. Dog and cat fur worked too and some of the students did this.

Karen was on hand to show the students how to clean off, seal & polish (if necessary) their creations. We do tell the students that Raku is not really for functional use, but we do have good success at sealing the vase type pots with a tile / stone sealer we use, but never guarantee they will be water tight for life.

We had some fabulous results, and all the students went away very happy.

AL – Great day. Very polished and enjoyable taster session

LR – Excellent day with the angry potter!! (Don’t think she liked Adrian’s South African accent 😊)

AS – Great day. Adrian and Karen were super helpful and learnt loads

SS – Very enjoyable day!. Thank you, Adrian & Karen. Hopefully be back for the Raku building session

NR – Excellent day! Thank you. Will be back

ER – Very cool thank you 😊