Last pot till Fall

Earl

Thought I would show off my latest pot. This is the one I made for my Bougainvillea but, alas, somewhere I got off on the measurements and it is about 2" too short. I don't have another tree for it so guess I will have to go shopping for a tree to fit.. Matt will be relieved because I can look for blue for the bougie . I may get a blue-green pot or a mottled blue but I can't stand the cobalt blue. Too much.

For you would be potters...give it a try. I have had a blast this year. We concluded our class by going up to a cabin of one of the students. We fired some stuff (no bonsai pots...vases, sculptures, etc.) in a garbage can with a propane blow torch. When they were red hot, we dropped them in a pit we dug, filled it with straw and sage and cedar chips and poof. The red hot pots caught the whole mess on fire, we then covered it with big sheets of roof tin and a half hour later we had raku.

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Earl

While I'm bragging, I will show you the raku vase I made Saturday. It's sort of on topic because the image on the vase is a bonsai pine branch but you can't really make it out in the photo

Carl_Bergstrom

Earl,

Great pot - I'm really impressed! What sort of tree do you think you'll put in it? Be sure to post pictures for us when you find the right tree...

-Old Mister

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In love with trees

bonsaial1

I would be interested how you got the red hot pots into the pit? I have seen stuff raku fired but it was a conveyor system in a commercial pottery studio.

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I been kidding the last seven years.
no.... really!

Earl

Hi Al,

We have a couple sissor like tongs...about 3 feet long...that have little points on the end of the tongs... sort of like the points on tongs you dip pots in a glaze with. Just turn the fire off and reach in the can and grab a pot and drop it in the pit. Same tongs are used to take them out of the pit and drop them in the water. I had shorts on...that was a mistake! Didn't get burned but my ol' legs would get almost too hot to stand when I was that close to the fire and can! Also wore heavy duty gloves.

GaryS

Earl,
So how does one get started making their own pots? I like the one you made.

If there's a thread on it already could you let me know?

I bought a copper colored raku pot from a locl potter this spring. It was expensive and it's very fragile.
He said not to let water get on it. What's the deal? I don't know much about raku.

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GaryS

GaryS

Earl,
Nevermind, there's enough on this Pots page to keep me busy.

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GaryS

Bonsainut

Earl,
Nice stuff. And I love racoon( the past tense of raku) or was that it taste just like chicken, what ever. Good work!




Gary,
Raku is a low fire process. So the clay hasn't fully melted together(vitrified). You get minute holes and the pot wall is pourous. This is strictly a decorative process.

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Keep growing,---'Nut



Lethal Use of Farce

Earl

You notice I ignore the advice about just looking and not using raku. This pot has water in it with the peonies. But you will also notice I put a dish under it and while it doesn't leak much water, there is always a puddle in it. So it does leak!

Gary, part of the reason raku is expensive is simply because a great deal of experience and time is involved. Another reason is that most raku artists only sell one or two out of every ten they make because the rest either break in the process or don't fire out with nice patterns and colors.

Also, while you said I didn't need to respond, I got started last fall taking a class through the local community college. Look around your town and you are bound to find somebody offering a class. I am the only one making bonsai pots in my class so you will probably be alone in that area. It was quite interesting to see people's reactions. When i started and made some pretty lousy pots, others just sort of raised their eye brows at them. They were making sculptures and artistic stuff and you could tell they didn't think much of bonsai pots. But now that I have gotten better, they all can't wait to see the next one. They now see the beauty in a pot!